From Cold Call to Critical Care: Episode 92

BTO Program Manager Lt. Col. Adam Willis, M.D., U.S. Air Force, joins Voices from DARPA to share his remarkable journey from a ROTC physics major to a leading innovator in military medicine. Dr. Willis discusses how a desire to apply science to help people led him down the dual paths of a Ph.D. in theoretical and appliled mechanics and a medical degree with a focus on neurology. He recounts the moment a demonstration of the DARPA-funded Revolutionizing Prosthetics program sparked his interest, leading him to cold-email a military doctor and future mentor, Col. Geoffrey Ling, who gave him a simple, life-changing piece of advice. In this episode, Dr. Willis explains his work on groundbreaking programs like Golden Hour Evacuation (GOLDEVAC) and Making Anatomical Sense of Hemorrhage (MASH) , which aim to revolutionize battlefield medicine by bringing critical care capabilities directly to the point of injury. He details his vision for an "ICU in a box" and autonomous surgical tools that could save countless lives when evacuation to a surgeon isn't possible. He also shares his unique perspective as a "Rosetta Stone," translating complex medical challenges into the language of physics and engineering to find novel solutions.

You can listen to From Cold Call to Critical Care: Episode 92 online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

From Cold Call to Critical Care: Episode 92 is an episode from Voices from DARPA by DARPA.

This episode is 0:30:31 long.

This episode was published on Apr 21, 2026.

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