Dr. Anne Cheever is Director of Prize Design at XPRIZE, where she leads the development of prize competition designs focused on advancing innovation to improve lives at global scale. As part of the Prize Design team, she works to shape high-impact challenges and build pathways to accelerate breakthrough solutions for humanity’s most pressing challenges.

Prior to joining XPRIZE, Anne served in leadership roles across the U.S. government, including at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and on the National Security Council in the Executive Office of the President. At DARPA, she created and led $400 million in high-risk, high-reward research and development programs spanning biotechnology, medical countermeasures, space biomanufacturing, AI-enabled biology, material science, and national security applications. In the Executive Office of the President, she coordinated a technology portfolio spanning biotechnology, AI, space, and energy, helping align emerging technology strategy with long-term national priorities and partner nations.

Anne is passionate about translating breakthrough science into real-world capability and building the partnerships, infrastructure, and incentive systems needed to scale frontier technologies. Throughout her career, she has worked at the intersection of disciplines, helping shape programs that bring together government, industry, academia, and startups around ambitious technical goals. She has led multidisciplinary teams in highly complex environments and is particularly interested in how emerging technologies can expand human capability, improve health outcomes, and create more sustainable futures, including beyond Earth. At XPRIZE, she is focused on designing bold challenges that catalyze global collaboration and accelerate transformative solutions.

Outside of work, Anne is a mother of three and enjoys spending time gardening, playing piano, and riding horses. She is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of scientists, innovators, and future technology leaders, and believes some of the most important work we do is helping others realize their full potential.