Published: New York Times, October 6, 2009 by John Markoff

The new director of the Pentagon's research arm has started visiting university campuses around the country in an effort to rebuild bridges that were severed under the Bush administration.

The director, Regina E. Dugan, who was appointed in July to lead the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, made visits last week to the University of California, Berkeley; Stanford University; the University of California, Los Angeles; and the California Institute of Technology. She had previously visited Virginia Tech and Texas A&M.