Defense IT Summit

Ms. Leslie A. Beavers is a career member of the Senior Executive Service and serving as the Acting Department of Defense Chief Information Officer (DoD CIO). In this capacity, Ms. Beavers serves as the primary advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Information Management / Information Technology (IT) and Information Assurance, as well as non-intelligence space systems; critical satellite communications, navigation, and timing programs; spectrum; and telecommunications.

Prior to assuming the role of the Acting DoD CIO, she served as the Principal Deputy, DoD CIO from April 2023 to July 2024.

Before joining the CIO, Ms. Beavers served as the Director of Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Enterprise Capabilities (ISREC). In this capacity she led OUSD(I&S)’s Defense Intelligence Digital Transformation Campaign Plan, known as Project Herald.

Project Herald’s overall goal is to evolve how the DoD delivers intelligence to warfighters while providing the unifying focus to realize next-generation capabilities. To this end, Ms. Beavers oversaw the planning, programming, budgeting and execution of the Defense Intelligence mission area within the Battlespace Awareness portfolio.

Ms. Beavers began her DoD career as an Intelligence Officer in the United States Air Force serving in various roles before retiring as a Reserve Brigadier General serving with the Joint Staff J2. Her assignments included: 16th Air Force, San Antonio, TX; Pacific Air Forces, Hickam, HI; Distributed Common Ground System 2, Beale AFB, CA; and 4th Air Force, March ARB, CA.

Additionally, Ms. Beavers has over 15 years’ experience in the private sector working in the Film/TV, Healthcare, and Oil and Gas industries. She served as Vice President at NBC/Universal Pictures responsible for recovering 80 years of film and television content destroyed in a fire. She worked with GE’s Healthcare Diagnostic Imaging division improving to manufacturing capacity, profit margin, and revenue. At Husky Oil, she consulted with C-suite executives on operational integrity establishing processes to manage risk introduction in drilling operations.

She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a MBA in Finance with Honors from South University. Ms. Beavers is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, a Distinguished Graduate of the Air Force’s Signals Intelligence program, and the recipient of numerous DoD and professional awards including the Defense Superior Service and Legion of Merit.

Mr. Ranjeev Mittu is the Branch Head for the Information and Decision Sciences Branch within the Information Technology Division at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC. He has been employed by NRL since 1989, and as a Branch Head leads a multidisciplinary group of scientists and engineers who conduct research and advanced development in visual analytics, human performance assessment, decision support systems, and enterprise systems. Mr. Mittu’s research expertise is in multi-agent systems, human-systems integration, Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, data mining and pattern recognition. He has authored and/or coedited eleven books on the topic of AI in collaboration with the national and international scientific communities spanning academia and defense. Mr. Mittu was nominated into MarquisWhosWho in 2023, and received a technology transition award at NRL in 2012.

Mr. Mittu’s contributions to the Naval Research Laboratory include serving on the Advisory Board for the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Code 34 Command Decision Making Program and temporary Program Officer at ONR Code 34 responsible for executing the Collaboration and Knowledge Interoperability Program. He also serves on the Advisory Council for World Cares Center, a non-profit organization. He served on the NRL Invention Evaluation Board (IEB), a working group of top researchers in their field who evaluate new technologies and concepts developed at NRL with USPTO filing potential. He was also a board member of NRL’s Long-Term Training Selection Panel. Mr. Mittu has served as a Thrust Manager for the Agent-Based Computing for Maritime Common Operational Picture (ABC-MCOP) under the DARPA Fast Connectivity of Coalitions and Agents Program (FastC2AP). The goal of ABC-MCOP was to demonstrate the utility and effectiveness of agent-based computing for providing an improved MCOP to watch-standers at the US Sixth Fleet Theater Maritime Fusion Center.

Mr. Mittu is an Internationally known subject matter expert in his field in various capacities. He currently participates in The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP), an international organization that promotes scientific exchange and collaboration between New Zealand, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and the United States. He is a US Navy Subject Matter Expert for the Navy’s AI Task Force and the Navy’s representative to the NATO Information Systems Technology Panel. He served as a technology subject matter expert for the Joint IED Defeat Organization and is actively involved with national and international scientific committees and panels. Mr. Mittu has been featured in Federal Computer Week: Preparing your Agency for AI and Automation, and Data & Analytics Summit: Leveraging Data to Improve Mission Effectiveness. He represented NRL as a Subject Matter Expert in a briefing to the House Armed Services Committee (HASC). The briefing was titled “Design Research to Improve Safety of Health Information Technology” in response to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 House Armed Services Committee Report 112-479. He previously served as a Subject Matter Expert on the Netcentric Systems Test S&T working group (NCST). The U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation (PEO STRI) at the direction of the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC), Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) was the activity lead for NCST. Mr. Mittu has demonstrated his expertise as a frequent contributor and organizer for several program committees such as the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Spring Symposium Series since 2012, American Medical Informatics Association Annual Symposium 2019, Naval Research and Development Enterprise Applied Artificial Intelligence (A21) Summit 2018, SPIE Next Generation Analyst V (2017) to name a few. Mr. Mittu also served on a Blue-Ribbon Panel for the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

Mr. Mittu received a Master of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering in 1995 from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, and a Certificate in Big Data Information Fusion in 2015 from the University at Buffalo (SUNY).

Ms. Jennifer Swanson is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Data, Engineering & Software (DASA(DES)), Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology (ASA(ALT)). In this position, Ms. Swanson leads implementation of modern software practices including agile software development and DevSecOps, data centricity, and digital engineering across ASA(ALT). Since standing up DASA(DES), she established a Unified Data Reference Architecture (UDRA) which will enable digital transformation by giving Program Managers and industry partners guidance on how to produce, share and consume data. At the direction of the VCSA, she co-led a Capability Portfolio Review securing senior leader endorsement to drive agile development and DevSecOps throughout the Army. And under her leadership, the Request for Proposal process is changing to require industry to deliver using modern software practices.

Prior to joining ASA(ALT), Ms. Swanson served as the Director of the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM) Software Engineering Center (SEC) headquartered in Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD. As Director, she oversaw a global mission, running an organization of approximately 3,000 military, civilian and industry employees, with an annual budget in excess of $700 million. She provided state of the art software engineering products and services throughout the Army.