Karla Rothenberg

Karla Rothenberg serves as a Contract Specialist within the Contract Administration Services Division (70RCAS) of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Procurement Operations. In this role, she manages the full lifecycle of complex professional, scientific, and technical service acquisitions critical to national security missions. Her responsibilities include developing solicitation documents, conducting source selection, negotiating contract terms, and ensuring compliance with federal acquisition regulations. She specializes in high-stakes R&D contracts that support systems engineering, cybersecurity infrastructure, and physical science innovation, directly enabling operational readiness and technological resilience across DHS missions. Karla collaborates with a diverse range of prime contractors and subcontractors, primarily those with deep expertise in engineering research, advanced systems development, and technical consulting. While no single contractor dominates her portfolio, she consistently engages with firms possessing specialized capabilities in physical and engineering sciences, including defense contractors, academic research partners, and independent technical service providers. Her procurement approach emphasizes performance-based contracting, clear statement of work development, and rigorous evaluation of technical proposals to ensure mission-critical outcomes. Karla’s contracting patterns reflect a strong preference for full and open competition, with 100% of her acquisitions issued without set-aside designations. This reflects a strategic focus on accessing the broadest possible pool of technical talent to meet urgent national security requirements, rather than prioritizing socioeconomic programs. While small business participation is not formally mandated in her portfolio, she remains attentive to opportunities where qualified small businesses can compete on equal footing through open solicitations. Her primary procurement focus is exclusively under NAICS 541712—Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology). She procures services including systems architecture, cybersecurity modeling, sensor development, computational analysis, and advanced prototyping. Her domain expertise lies in engineering sciences that underpin DHS’s critical infrastructure protection and next-generation threat detection systems.