Speakers

Congressman Jerry McNerney was sworn into office on January 4, 2007.  He is proud to represent California’s 9th District, which includes a large portion of San Joaquin County in the Central Valley as well as parts of Contra Costa and Sacramento Counties.

McNerney was inspired to run for Congress by his son Michael, who in response to the attacks of September 11, sought and received a commission in the Air Force. Michael suggested that his Dad serve his country by running for Congress. With a deep sense of duty and his family’s support, McNerney began his journey to Congress.

Congressman McNerney is honored to serve on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the oldest standing legislative committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. The committee is vested with broad jurisdiction on a number of issues including telecommunications, consumer protection, food and drug safety, public health research, environmental quality, energy policy, and interstate and foreign commerce. The Congressman is also proud to be a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

McNerney, who has his Ph.D. in mathematics, served several years as an engineering contractor to Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. In 1990 McNerney moved with his family to California, accepting a senior engineering position with U.S. Windpower, Kenetech. McNerney later began working as an energy consultant for PG&E, FloWind, the Electric Power Research Institute, and other utility companies. Prior to his election to Congress, he formed a start-up company to manufacture wind turbines. During his career in wind energy, McNerney’s work contributed to saving the equivalent of approximately 30 million barrels of oil, or 8.3 million tons of carbon dioxide.

McNerney and Mary, his wife of 40 years, have three grown children. Their oldest son, Michael, is a reserve officer in the U.S. Air Force and a graduate of American University with a degree in law. Daughter Windy received a Ph.D. from Notre Dame in neuroscience and is now working on the biochemistry of neurodegenerative disorders as a fellow at the VA Palo Alto, and also teaches at Stanford University.  Their youngest son, Greg, received his Ph.D. in biophysics and is working as an engineer at Intel Corporation.

Committee Assignments

House Committee on Energy & Commerce

• Subcommittee on Energy
• Subcommittee on Communications & Technology
• Subcommittee on Consumer Protection & Commerce

House Committee on Science, Space & Technology

• Subcommittee on Energy

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Marianne Roth is the Chief Risk Officer at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Since January 2017, she has been responsible for creating an ERM program and managing an agency-wide approach to risk management.

Previously, Marianne served as the Branch Manager for Enterprise Risk Management within the Office of the Chief Risk Officer in the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In this role, she oversaw all ERM activities at TSA and led the agency in its efforts to significantly mature its ERM program. TSA’s ERM program was recognized by GAO in its report titled ENTERPRISE RISK MANAGEMENT: Selected Agencies’ Experiences Illustrate Good Practices in Managing Risk.

Marianne regularly advises other federal government agencies on their ERM implementation. She has spoken on ERM at many professional conferences and trainings including AFERM, Association for Military Comptrollers, Association of Government Accountants, Conference Board, and the Potomac Forum. Marianne was interviewed on “Government Matters” television program, WABC7 Washington for her efforts in leading TSA’s ERM program and has presented on ERM webcasts for Gartner and George Washington University. Marianne holds a MA in Political Science from the University of Connecticut and a BA in Government from Franklin and Marshall College.

Dr. Seth Cohen joined DARPA as a Program Manager in August 2019. He is interested in novel materials, new approaches to therapeutics/countermeasures, and biological and chemical technologies for stabilization/acquisition of scarce resources.

Dr. Cohen joins DARPA from the University of California, San Diego, where he is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and a former Department Chair. His research program is focused on the interface of bioinorganic and medicinal chemistry, as well as advanced materials, specifically the chemistry of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Dr. Cohen previously served as the AAAS Roger Revelle Fellow in Global Stewardship in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and he is an alumnus of the Defense Science Study Group (DSSG).

Dr. Cohen received a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Stanford University, a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of California, Berkeley in Chemistry, and was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at M.I.T.

Dr. Cohen is an elected fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He has been recognized with several awards for his research and teaching, including an NSF CAREER award, the Cottrell and TREE awards from the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement (RCSA), and the ACS Cope Scholar Award.

Patrick Estep is a human performance engineer with the Human Physiology, Performance, Protections, and Operations (H-3PO) Lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. He is the acting technical lead of the lab’s Spacesuits and Exploration Operations team, that is focused on understanding impacts to human health and performance driven by extravehicular activities (EVAs) or “spacewalks”.

Gregory C. Allen is the director of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance Project and a senior fellow in the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Prior to joining CSIS, he was the director of strategy and policy at the Department of Defense (DOD) Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, where he oversaw development and implementation of the DOD’s AI Strategy, drove policy and human capital reforms to accelerate the DOD’s adoption of AI, developed mechanisms for AI governance and ethics, and led frequent diplomatic engagements with governments and militaries in Europe and the Indo-Pacific regions, including China. Mr. Allen’s expertise and professional experience spans AI, robotics, semiconductors, space technology, and national security. Prior to working at the DOD, he was the head of market analysis and competitive strategy at Blue Origin, a space technology manufacturer and space launch services provider. Mr. Allen’s writing and commentary has appeared in in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Economist, Nature, CNN, Fox News, Foreign Policy, and WIRED. He holds a joint MPP/MBA degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Business School.

Anjana Susarla holds the Omura-Saxena Professorship in Responsible AI at the Broad College of Business. She earned an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai; a graduate degree in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta; and Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include the economics of information systems, social media analytics and the economics of artificial intelligence. Her work has appeared in several academic journals and peer-reviewed conferences such as Academy of Management Conference, Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (Neurips), Information Systems Research, International Conference in Information Systems, International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), Journal of Management Information Systems, Management Science and MIS Quarterly. She has served on and serves on the editorial boards of Information Systems Research and MIS Quarterly. 

Anjana Susarla has received several awards for her research. She been a recipient of the William S. Livingston Award for Outstanding Graduate Students at the University of Texas, a Steven Schrader Best Paper Finalist at the Academy of Management, the Association of Information Systems Best Publication Award, a Runner-Up for Information Systems Research Best Published Paper Award and the Microsoft Prize by the International Network of Social Networks Analysis Sunbelt Conference. She has worked in consulting and led experiential projects with several companies. Her research has received grants and funding from several institutions including the National Library of Medicine (a division of the National Institute of Health). 

Professor Susarla has given several invited talks at industry and academic events and has been a commentator on algorithmic bias and digital transformation. She has been interviewed in and had her op-eds and research quoted and published in several media outlets such as the Associated Press, Atlanta Journal Constitution, BBC, Business Insider, Business Standard, CBS, Channel News Asia, Chicago Tribune, The Conversation, The Daily Beast, Deutsche Welle, Economic Times, El Pais, Esquire, Fast Company, Fox News, Gizmodo, Haaretz, the Hindu, Houston Chronicle, Huffington Post, India Today, Michigan Public Radio, Marketplace Morning Report, The Mint, Nasdaq, National Public Radio, NBC, NDTV, Newsweek, Nieman Lab, Nikkei, OneZero, Outlook India, PBS, Pew Research, Philadelphia Inquirer, the Print, Quartz, Salon, Scientific American, Sirius XM, Slate, Snopes, UPI, Washington Post, the Week, Wired, World Economic Forum and Yahoo Finance. She has also been a speaker at public forums such as the South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival and the United States Institute of Peace.

Dr. Allen Badeau is the chief technology officer for Empower AI, as well as the director of the Empower AI Center for Rapid Engagement and Agile Technology Exchange (CREATE) Lab. In this role, he leads innovation research and development activities designed to add value to Empower AI’s customers and their missions, including cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, software defined networks, robotics, advanced data analytics, agile DevSecOps and many other areas.

With the CREATE Lab, Empower AI is building next-generation, value-based solutions for its customers utilizing a collaborative, knowledge-sharing environment. Under Allen’s direction, the CREATE ecosystem brings together people, processes, and ideas, as well as software and hardware resources — exploring the strategy and implementation of new and advanced technologies, and redefining how innovation is integrated into our customers’ environment.

Prior to joining Empower AI, Allen held various leadership roles at ASRC Federal, CSC, Innovative Management & Technology Services and Lockheed Martin. Allen received his bachelor’s in physics, and both his master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from West Virginia University.

For two decades, Ben Cushing has been a leader in emerging technology solutions across multiple industries and is committed to radical innovation in healthcare. Before joining Red Hat, he served as the Chief Technology Officer for MDLogix, a behavioral health IT firm supporting Johns Hopkins Medicine. There he architected and brought to market a behavioural health cloud platform for use with employer, healthcare, and education markets.

In addition to supporting analytics and operations at the National Institutes of Health for 6 years, Cushing had the opportunity to practice a scaled agile framework with Accenture where he led the technical architecture and design for the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Electronic Health Management Platform, an industry leading Health Management and Care Coordination platform serving 9 million patients.

His tenure at Accenture began with the acquisition of Agilex, where he designed LSI solutions, developed systems to automate the Post-9/11 GI bill, and supported in-theater data collection and analytics tools. While at Agilex, Ben architected and led the development of a mobile Software Development Kit, still in use today by the VA to produce more than 60 applications.

Tommy Gardner is HP’s Chief Technology Officer for HP Federal, spanning the US Federal Agencies, Higher Education, K-12 Education, State and Local government customer segments, as well as Federal Systems Integrators. His current responsibilities include technology leadership, strategic technology plans, product and technology strategies, sales force technical support, and customer and partner relationships.

Previously, Tommy has served as the Chief Technology Officer for Jacobs Engineering, Scitor, and ManTech. Earlier in his career he was a senior technical executive at Raytheon. In the U.S. Navy he served as the Deputy for Science and Technology for the Chief of Naval Research. He oversaw the Navy’s Deep Submergence Program as well as its Advanced Technology Program. He also commanded the nuclear submarine, USS San Juan (SSN 751).

Tommy’s educational background covers multiple disciplines and fields of interest including: cybersecurity, data science, blockchain technologies, artificial intelligence, high performance computing and systems integration in government markets.

Tommy holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy, a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University, an M.S. in Management of Technology from MIT and a Ph. D. in Energy Economics from George Washington University. He is a Professional Engineer and serves as Chair of the ASME Industry Advisory Board. He is an ASME Fellow and serves as faculty on the Blockchain Research Institute.

Aaron Boyd, Senior Editor for Technology and Events, Nextgov

Aaron Boyd is an award-winning journalist currently serving as senior editor for technology and events at Nextgov. He primarily covers federal government IT contracting and cybersecurity issues affecting both civilian and defense agencies. As a lifelong nerd and policy wonk, he feels right at home covering the intersection of technology and policy in the nation’s capital.

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George Jackson is the VP of events at GovExec Media – the largest and most-influential media company in the public sector marketplace. George joined GovExec in October of 2020 to enhance the scale of their events and audience experiences.

He graduated from The Ohio State University in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in English. In 2006, he earned his master’s in broadcast journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park.

George spent the first five years of his journalism career at WJHL-TV in Johnson City Tenn. – beginning as an overnight producer for the station’s 6 a.m. broadcast. He advanced to lead on-air reporter for WJHL’s 11 p.m. newscast.

As a reporter, George examined the earnings of two non-profit hospital systems, felony charges filed against a local sheriff, predatory paving companies, a health benefits backlog for local veterans, and a series of cold-case murder investigations. He received an honorable mention for Best TV Reporter in the 2011 Tennessee AP Broadcast awards and won a Best Investigative Reporting award from Media General in 2010.

George joined DC’s ABC affiliate WJLA-TV in 2012 to produce Capital Insider, which won him an Emmy award. One year later, he developed and recorded the pilot episode of Government Matters – a program about the business of government. It debuted as a weekly show on Sunday, August 4th of 2013. George led Government Matters through September of 2020, expanded its reach to a daily worldwide audience, and produced its first feature-length documentary “The Dawn of Generation AI.”

George is from Toledo, Ohio. He lives with his wife, twin daughters, and a pair of rescue dogs in Northern Virginia.

Frank Konkel is Nextgov’s executive editor. He writes about the intersection of government and technology. Frank began covering tech in 2013 upon moving to the Washington, D.C. area after getting his start in journalism working at local and state issues at daily newspapers in his home state of Michigan. Frank was born and raised on a dairy farm and graduated from Michigan State University.

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