Penrose ‘Parney’ Albright

sk Penrose Albright about the scientists he admires, and he'll name figures such as Blaise Pascal, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton-thinkers who worked well in many fields. "They were polymaths," says Albright, who focuses on plans, programs, and budgets in his post as the Homeland Security Department's assistant secretary for science and technology. "You don't find so many of those people anymore, and I really admire those types."

Working closely with Undersecretary for Science and Technology Charles McQueary, Albright, 50, serves as an in-house polymath of sorts. His job, essentially, is to develop an understanding of the technical details of subjects ranging from biological environmental sampling to aviation security, and then work those details into homeland-security policy as needed.

"The good news is, about every half-hour, I do something totally different," said Albright, a Maryland native who earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Maryland. "The bad part of this job is that about every half-hour, I do something different."

Albright, who goes by the nickname "Parney," came to the department after serving as assistant director for homeland and national security in the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House-a job he began shortly after 9/11. Before that, Albright was a program manager for the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, where he landed after a long tenure with a federally funded research organization called the Institute for Defense Analyses.

At the White House, Albright also worked as senior director for research and development in the Office of Homeland Security under Tom Ridge, and he joined a cadre of members of the president's early homeland-security team who moved to leadership positions at DHS. "It's a really cool job, if you like doing a lot of different things every day," Albright said.