Lt. Col. Amber N. DeRiggi, Recipient of the 2025 Professional Award in Electrical & Computer Engineering Award

Lt. Col. Amber N. DeRiggi is the Division Chief, STARCOM S9 at HQ STARCOM, Peterson SFB, Colorado. She is responsible for management of the Commander’s Assessment Program and providing decision advantage for the STARCOM Commander. DeRiggi currently performs analyses supporting policy and doctrine development and is STARCOM’s focal point for data analytics frameworks and analytical rigor for all phases of test planning, execution and reporting. Additionally, she leads STARCOM’s digital processes and data transformation efforts and supports STARCOM’s efforts in developing cost/impact analysis into the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process.

Born in 1986, in Louisville, DeRiggi split most of her childhood between Hendersonville, NC and KY, where she attended school and graduated Valedictorian from Fairdale High School in 2004. In 2008 and 2009, she earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Electrical & Computer Engineering with High Honors from the University of Louisville in Kentucky. In May of 2009, she commissioned as an AFROTC distinguished graduate into the U.S. Air Force as a Command and Control System Test Manager & Engineer.

She has worked assignments in engineering and a career broadening as the Chief of Personnel Recovery Operations (Search and Rescue) at Hickam AFB. After Hickam AFB, DeRiggi was assigned to Los Angeles AFB as Chief of Avionics and Electrical Systems on the Atlas V, Delta IV and Falcon 9 rockets where she launched 34 missions and directed a $300 million avionics upgrade to both Atlas V and Delta IV launch vehicles. DeRiggi then relocated to Peterson AFB, where she was the Lead, Defensive Cyberspace Operations for Space Systems at Headquarters, U.S. Air Force Space Command until her deployment to USCENTCOM in 2019. Prior to STARCOM in Feb ’24, DeRiggi was the creator and Director of Staff for Space Delta 15, National Space Defense Center, Schriever SFB, Colorado, where she was responsible for developing, documenting and staffing space, intelligence and cyberspace requirements supporting DoD, civil and national operators within the Joint Task Force – Space Defense (JTF-SD) under US Space Command and Space Forces for Space. She interfaced between space wings, space enterprise ground sites, operations centers, Space and Missile Systems Center directorates, intelligence community, mission partners and multiple defense contracting facilities for space defense operations. She was also responsible for providing space/cyber support, control, force enhancement and force application warfighting capabilities in support of Unified Combatant Commands. Additionally, she directed integration and rapid acquisition of new space/cyber capabilities exceeding $70B annually.

DeRiggi completed 12 years in the U.S. Air Force before voluntarily transferring over to the U.S. Space Force in 2021. She is a master space operator and master-level engineer for the U.S. Space Force.