Draper Lab, Massachusetts

Draper Lab is a private, nonprofit R&D lab, spun out of MIT's Instrumentation Lab in 1973 - amid protests from students about the school's deep involvement in military work. The Instrumentation Lab employed as many as 2,000 people at its peak, developing guidance systems for missiles used in Vietnam, as well as in aircraft (including the Space Shuttle), and the Apollo program. Charles Stark Draper was director of the Instrumentation Lab, and president of the Draper Lab for two years before retiring. Draper (who spent twelve years as a graduate student at MIT), and his students developed gyroscopic inertial navigation technologies after the war, which revolutionized aeronautics and made nuclear missiles possible. The lab now employs around 1,400 people and the majority of the lab's work still involves developing guidance systems for military applications, such as those used in the Trident II (D5) nuclear missile. Other areas of interest include precision instrumentation components and systems for use in missiles, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and humans; autonomous systems for ground, air, and sea platforms; cybersecurity; data analysis techniques (including machine learning); and electronic and computer technologies for healthcare applications.