Dr. Jesse Stephen

Jesse W. Stephen is the Chief of Innovation and Research and the Deputy Director for Partnerships and Innovation at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA). In these roles Dr. Stephen provides leadership and oversees programmatic efforts to recover and identify unaccounted Department of Defense personnel listed as prisoners of war or missing in action from designated past conflicts, from countries around the world.

Prior to his current role Dr. Stephen served as an archaeologist for the DPAA and its predecessor organizations, leading investigation and recovery field activities, and analyzing evidentiary materials in the laboratory, to resolve cases from WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. He helped pioneer the multidisciplinary team concept as one of the first archaeologists to be detailed outside of the Central Identification Lab and then served as the first Chief of Research (Pacific MDT) in the Indo-Pacific Directorate, before being assigned to establish and build DPAA's partnership program.

Dr. Stephen earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 2016 and also holds a M.A. in Anthropology (UHM), a B.S. in Photography (Northern Arizona University), and a B.A. in Anthropology (NAU). He has studied, taught, and conducted research within the U.S. as well as internationally, contributing to archaeological and anthropological projects in Oceania, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.