Her most notable research project, known as the 'Dog's Nose,' involved the development of an advanced portable system that could detect the explosive content of landmines.

In 1999, she was awarded 'Manager of the Year' for her work at DARPA and in 2000, she was honored with the Bronze de Fleury Medal by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

[11] Shortly after the Google acquisition of Motorola Mobility closed, Dugan was tasked with creating the Advanced Technology and Projects group, a skunkworks-inspired team chartered to deliver breakthrough innovations for the company.

In an interview with the New York Times, Dugan described ATAP as "a small, lean, and agile group that is unafraid of failure," she said, and that it will "celebrate impatience.

It was there that ATAP announced the development of Project Ara, a free, open hardware platform for creating highly modular smartphones.

"Regina does bring in outside perspective specifically related to projects that are leaps, versus incremental steps," Seattle-based wireless analyst Chetan Sharma recently told Technology Review.

[25] In a New York Times article, titled "New Force Behind Agency of Wonder", John Markoff noted that Dugan is "credited with having a knack for inspiring, and indeed insisting on, creative thinking.

[27][28] Based on their work at DARPA and then Motorola, Dugan and Gabriel co-wrote "Special Forces Innovation" for the Harvard Business Review's October 2013 issue.

The term, coined by political scientist Donald E. Stokes in his 1997 book by the same name, describes innovation that advances basic research and solves practical problems.

Subsequently, the LA Times and Wired reported that her company had received around $1.8M in DARPA contracts and that Dugan held a promissory note from RedXDefense in the amount of $250,000.

[39] In August 2011, the Inspector General of the Department of Defense(DoD) began an investigation to ensure the procedures had been followed, and to examine DARPA's general policies on conflict of interest as well as a specific concern that DARPA Director Regina Dugan retains financial ties to her former firm, which has won some $6 million in contracts with the agency, $4.3 million of which was awarded prior to her position as Director.

[40] The Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Ashton Carter, and the Department of Defense, General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, stated in a letter dated May 2011 addressed to Dugan, "based on what we know, we are satisfied that, given your disqualification from matters related to RedXDefense and the procedures you have put in place, there has been no violation of conflict of interest laws or regulations in the selection or funding of RedXDefense's proposals while you have been Director of DARPA".