By Steve Neavling
Susan Ferensic has been named assistant director of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD) at FBI headquarters.
Ferensic, who most recently served as the special agent in charge of the Columbia Field Office in South Carolina, will head an office that mitigates threats from chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive weapons.
Ferensic joined the bureau in 1997 as a computer forensic examiner in the Laboratory Division.
After she was selected for new agent training in 2000, she was assigned to investigate criminal and national security computer intrusion in the Washington Field Office.
In 2007, Ferensic became supervisory special agent in the Cyber Division at FBI headquarters, where she was a program manager for criminal computer intrusion investigations.
She moved to the Albuquerque Field Office in New Mexico in 2009 to head the cyber and technically trained agent squad and served and supervised Albuquerque’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
In 2014, Ferensic was promoted to special assistant to the executive assistant director of the Science and Technology Branch at FBI headquarters.
In 2016, she became assistant special agent in charge of the Criminal Branch of the Sacramento Field Office in California.
In 2018, Ferensic transferred to section chief of the Digital Forensics and Analytics Section in the Operational Technology Division at FBI headquarters. The following year, she was promoted to chief of staff of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch at FBI headquarters.
In 2020, Ferensic was named special agent in charge of the Columbia Field Office.
Ferensic received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Maryland. Before working at the bureau, she was a computer scientist at the Department of Defense.
