Scheuermann was paralyzed by a rare disease years ago, but thanks to neural implants and a DARPA program, she is able to control robotic limbs with her thoughts. And, thanks to DARPA, she was able to pilot an F-35 simulator using those same implants. The revelation came last week, when DARPA director Arati Prabhakar told the story of the flight to the crowd assembled for the New America Foundation’s first annual Future of War conference. After explaining how Scheuermann was able to control a robotic arm, with neural implants, Prabhakar then told the crowd “Jan decided that she wanted to try flying a Joint Strike Fighter simulator. So Jan got to fly in the simulator.”