 It was there that ATAP announced the development of Project Ara, a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones.Additionally, in an effort to streamline research projects, foster greater collaboration with the university research community, Dugan and her deputy, Dr. Kaigham (Ken) Gabriel, negotiated the Multi-University Research Agreement with, initially, eight leading public and private universities.Experienced in counterterrorism and defense against explosive threats, Dugan first served as a DARPA program manager from 1996 to 2000.