Desmond Saunders-Newton currently heads the Social Computation and Complexity Directorate of BAE SYSTEMS Advanced Information Technologies line-of-business. Prior to joining BAE, he served as a consulting scientist in the Information Exploitation and Information Awareness Offices of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and as a research professor in the National Defense University's Center for Technology and National Security Policy. In these appointments, he was involved in envisioning and developing applied science and technological approaches to address pressing issues of national defense and global security.

Before returning to the fields of national security, as well as science and technology policy, Dr. Saunders-Newton worked with the Los Angeles City Board of Education's Independent Analysis Unit. In this appointment, he evaluated student achievement and school performance and designed a schema for incorporating measurement research into the daily operations of the second largest school district in the United States.

Prior to joining the Board of Education, he also served as the strategic planning and policy analyst for the California State University system (the largest system of senior higher education institutions in the nation) and as a principal legislative analyst for Virginia's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (a legislative program evaluation agency). Dr. Saunders-Newton also maintained a

long-term research relationship with the RAND Corporation.

In conjunction with his position at BAE, Dr. Saunders-Newton is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning and Development. He serves as the associate editor for research method and statistics of the Social Science Computer Review, is a member of the advisory board of the Public Policy and International Affairs program and the scholarship committee of the Aspen Institute's Socrates Society, and sits on the external advisory board of George Mason University's Center for Social Complexity and the University of California at Los Angeles' Center for Governance.

Dr. Saunders-Newton  earned a BA in physics from Lawrence University, a master’s of public policy from the Ford School of the University of Michigan, and an MPhil and PhD from the Pardee RAND Graduate School.