Health IT Summit

Steven Posnack serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy (and Principal Deputy National Coordinator for Health Information Technology). In this role, he advises the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy (and National Coordinator for Health IT), leads the execution of ASTP’s mission and represents its interests at a national and international level. In conjunction with the Assistant Secretary, Steve oversees ASTP’s federal policy coordination, regulatory development, public-private initiatives, and the HHS-wide functions led by HHS’ Chief Technology Officer, Chief Data Officer, and Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer.

Over his nearly 20-year career with ASTP, Steve has led and created initiatives in a variety of technology and policy positions, including serving as the Deputy National Coordinator for Health IT, Executive Director of the Office of Technology, Director of the Office of Standards and Technology, Director of the Federal Policy Division, and Senior Policy Analyst.

Patrick Newbold is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Director of the Office of Information Technology. He is an accomplished IT executive with a distinguished career in federal service. Prior to joining CMS, Patrick served as the Deputy CIO for Strategy for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), managing business, strategy, and customer engagement.

While at SSA, he served as the Social Security Administration (SSA) Chief Information Officer and most senior agency executive leading information technology, software engineering and cybersecurity risk management and operations. He also co-founded the agency’s Office of Transformation, driving wholesale change across the agency, led the agency’s digital modernization efforts. Before joining SSA, he was the Deputy Chief Information Officer (DCIO) and Director of Enterprise Information Technology for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In this role, he was the principal advisor to the CIO on information management/technology, policy, and administrative issues for the directorate. He was responsible for IT service delivery for over 37K users.

Throughout his federal career, he has advocated for digital transformation, IT modernization, and enabling business goals through technology. He has served on the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) Board since 2023, where he evaluates federal agency project proposals submitted for funding under the Modernizing Government Technology Act.

Patrick lives in greater Washington D.C. with his wife, Katie, and enjoys travel, early morning exercise, and movies of all genres.

Mr. Mitchell Thornbrugh is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the Director of the Office of Information Technology (OIT) for the Indian Health Service (IHS). The IHS, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, is the principal federal healthcare advocate and provider for American Indians and Alaska Natives. He is an enrolled member of the Muscogee Creek Nation.

Mr. Thornbrugh leads the IHS in all aspects of information resource management and technology and promotes adherence to federal information technology laws, regulations, and policies. Under his leadership, OIT designs, develops, implements, and maintains policies, budgets, standards, architecture, and systems for IHS information technology, including the IHS Health IT Modernization Program. He also manages OIT’s participation in cross-government initiatives with federal, tribal, state, and other partners to serve American Indians and Alaska Natives.

As CIO, Mr. Thornbrugh is a key IHS Health IT Modernization Program leader. The Program offers IHS health partners an enterprise electronic health record (EHR) system to provide consistent patient-centered care through proven best practices, secure technology, and shared data. He works closely with tribal, urban, and federal partners to deploy and operate the new system to improve patient safety and patient outcomes for more than 2.7 million American Indian and Alaska Native people.

Jesus Caban is the CDAO at the DHA.

Travis Hoppe, former White House OSTP Assistant Director of AI R&D, now serves as the acting Chief AI Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He leads research, development, and policy work on AI, ML, and data science initiatives. Along with other policy entrepreneurs, he enabled CDC to be the first federal agency to unilaterally deploy a generative AI model, ChatGPT, to all staff. Before his tenure at the CDC, Travis co-authored The Pile, a pioneering open-source dataset used for training large language models that served as a catalyst for promoting open science within the field of AI. He holds a PhD in Physics from Drexel University and served two post-docs at the National Institutes of Health.

Arjuna Swaminathan serves as the first Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS OIG). With a career dedicated to advancing the use of artificial intelligence, Arjuna has been pivotal in driving the enterprise adoption of AI technologies to enhance operational efficiencies and foster innovation.

Before his tenure at HHS OIG, Arjuna was a Principal at IBM’s Cloud and Cognitive Services Division. During his time at IBM, he specialized in partnering with healthcare organizations to develop and integrate AI solutions tailored to their specific business needs, thereby improving service delivery and decision-making processes. Arjuna holds dual graduate degrees from the University of Maryland, earning an M.B.A. in Strategy and an M.S. in Information Systems. His educational background, combined with his extensive professional experience, has equipped him with a deep understanding of both the strategic and technical aspects of AI implementation in healthcare.

Ms. Nadia Smith is the Acting Chief Digital Health Officer for the Veterans Health Administration. She leads and manages the planning and execution for the establishment of a new Digital Health Office, at the direction of the Undersecretary, and coordinates with all key officials and stakeholders involved. Ms. Smith is an executive with over 25 years of management and technology consulting experience serving commercial and federal government clients. She has experience leading large and small teams to modernize programs, systems, and applications using user-centered design, product management, data-driven and agile delivery methods. Ms. Smith holds a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) and is a Certified Scrum Master (CSM).

Eileen Oni received a bachelors in Biological Sciences from Rowan University and PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from Rutgers University. Her Ph.D. work focused on using adult induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons to identify the role of genetic variants in addiction behaviors. Eileen is an alumnus National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, where she worked with the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law on projects involving Dual Use Research of Concern and Future of Voting. As an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation, Eileen performed portfolio analyses, crafted and edited funding solicitations, and developed content for outreach reports and materials for the Broadening Participation in Engineering program and NSF INCLUDES Initiative. At the National Institutes of Health, Eileen was a Health Science Policy Analyst in the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Eileen is currently the Chief Data Officer in the Office of Evaluation, Planning, and Reporting (OEPR) in the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives in the Office of the Director. Eileen provides data analytics, evaluation, and policy expertise to lead projects that develop data infrastructure, knowledge management, and analytics in support of OEPR’s mission.

Dr. Neil C. Evans is the Acting Program Executive Director (PED) of VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office. Dr. Evans reports to VA’s Deputy Secretary and is responsible for coordinating agency efforts to implement a modernized Federal Electronic Health Record (EHR) across its enterprise, including the functional, technical, and program management elements of the new EHR program.

Dr. Evans also serves as the Chief Officer for the Office of Connected Care in the Veterans Health Administration, overseeing VA’s expansive telehealth program and Veteran-facing digital health capabilities, including VA’s patient portal, mobile program, and other initiatives connecting Veterans with their VA health care teams.

In late 2021, Dr. Evans served as VA’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology and CIO, leading VA’s Digital Transformation. The role included managing a budget of more than $4 billion and guiding a workforce of approximately 16,000 government and contract staff, enabling health care and benefits delivery to more than 9 million enrolled Veterans.

In addition, Dr. Evans served from 2019-2020 as Interim Director and then Senior Advisor at the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization office, leading efforts to implement a single, common Federal EHR with VA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Coast Guard.

Dr. Evans has over 20 years of experience in VA and remains an active primary care physician, managing a panel of patients in the Primary Care clinic at the Washington, D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He has served in both clinical and IT-related leadership roles at the medical center level and at VA Central Office.

Dr. Evans began his VA career after completing medical school at Johns Hopkins University and training in Internal Medicine through the Osler Medical Residency, also at Johns Hopkins. He is board-certified in both Internal Medicine and Clinical Informatics and holds a faculty appointment as a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Prior to his medical training, he received a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware.

In October 2020, Dr. Evans was selected as a winner of the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal for Management Excellence. Dr. Evans and his wife, Rachel, have three children.

Rear Adm. Tracy Farrill currently serves as the MHS GENESIS Functional Champion for the Defense Health Agency and Principal Deputy of the Assistant Director for Healthcare Administration. She provides leadership in growing and enhancing high reliability model health care with outstanding clinical outcomes, excellent service, and training, establishing strong, collegial, mutually supportive partnerships across the federal footprint, private sector care, and military hospitals and clinics.

She was previously the Defense Health Network Continental Director, providing leadership to 26 military hospitals and clinics in the administration and management of healthcare delivery across all DOD hospitals and clinics, implementing policy, procedures, and direction that affect healthcare delivery and administration, as well as provide cross-functional support.

In her previous role as AD HCA Transition Director, Farrill provided leadership in Pre-Certification and Post-Certification efforts to meet the 2017 NDAA Military Health System Transformation mandate. She was responsible for the planning, management, and execution of the transition of healthcare facilities to a unified MHS under the authority, direction, and control of the DHA in coordination with the service.

She has served at multiple levels within healthcare delivery within the Indian Health Service, including clinical pharmacist, Area Pharmacy Consultant, Clinic Chief of Operations, and Chief Executive Officer. Prior to her assignment at the DHA, Farrill served as the Deputy Director of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps Headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, providing leadership and oversight of career management functions for the Commissioned Corps officers across the nation in support of the U.S. Surgeon General.

She has deployed for the Secretary of Health and Human Services in response to multiple national emergencies as a Rapid Deployment Force Commander to include multiple hurricane responses, flooding, unaccompanied minors, remote area medical events and the response to Ebola in Monrovia, Africa.

Farrill graduated magna cum laude from the Oklahoma University Health Science Center, College of Pharmacy, with a bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy as well as a Doctorate Degree, and is board certified in Pharmacotherapy and Public Health.

Jonathan Alboum is the Federal CTO at ServiceNow. In this role, Jonathan works with federal agencies to deliver digital workflows that create great experiences and unlock productivity.

Before joining ServiceNow, Jonathan held a variety of senior executive positions in the federal government. His federal government tenure includes serving as the Chief Information Officerfor the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where he led the development of USDA’s ITModernization strategy, including Cloud computing, network modernization, and enhanced information security protections for a $3 billion annual technology spend. In addition, he servedas a leader in USDA’s Acquisition community, supporting the oversight, assessment, andstrategic planning of an acquisition portfolio of more than 70,000 awards, worth $6 billion annually.

Jonathan also worked at GSA as the Associate CIO for Enterprise Governance and Planning andled the creation of GSA’s consolidated IT organization. He began his federal career at the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), where he served as Deputy CIO and CIO. Before joining government, he worked in management consulting.

Jonathan holds a MS in the Management of Information Technology from the University ofVirginia’s McIntire School of Commerce and a BS in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Dr. Kinsinger is the Assistant Director for Catalytic Data Resources in the NIH Common Fund where he hopes to transform discovery into health through data science. In this role, he provides vision and leadership for complex research programs involving data integration, anatomical atlases with single-cell resolution, genomic sequencing of pediatric cancers and structural birth defects, and biomedical applications of artificial intelligence. Previously, Dr. Kinsinger worked as a Program Director of the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) in the National Cancer Institute, where he led operations for data management and biospecimen processing for the proteogenomic characterization program. He oversaw development of the CPTAC Data Coordinating Center and the Proteomic Data Commons, a node of the Cancer Research Data Commons. He also managed the CPTAC biospecimen collection pipeline and served as a scientific mentor for the American Association of Cancer Research’s Scientist Survivor Program for patient advocates. Chris received his Ph.D. in computational chemistry from the University of Minnesota, studying oxidation mechanisms of bioinorganic complexes. He then completed a postdoc at the National Institute of Standards and Technology where he investigated potential energy surfaces of gas-phase dissociation of peptides.

Ms. Tamara Lilly is the Assistant Inspector General (AIG) for the Office of Audit Services (OAS) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). She joined the OIG in April 2019 and oversees the cybersecurity and information technology audit program. The mission is to provide timely, impactful, and relevant cybersecurity and IT audits of the systems, tools, and techniques used by or on behalf of HHS to support healthcare delivery to beneficiaries and reporting for decision making such as telehealth, artificial intelligence, and electronic health records. Prior to HHS, she served as the Deputy Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at the Department of Homeland Security focused on strengthening its cybersecurity and information technology posture.

Ms. Lilly is a Certified Information Security Auditor. She earned a Computer Science degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County and Masters Certificate from George Washington University in Management Information Systems.

Andrew Carney joined ARPA-H in July 2023 from HSBC’s Cybersecurity Science and Analytics group, where he worked as a principal researcher. He has over 15 years of experience in software and hardware vulnerability research, technical education and training, and management of research and development teams.

In addition to his role as program manager with ARPA-H, Carney holds a joint program manager appointment with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC), a competition focused on securing software in critical infrastructure. Before HSBC, Carney was a technical advisor and contractor for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). At DARPA, he supported research efforts focused on reverse engineering, program analysis, human-machine teaming, and automated program repair. Throughout his career, Carney has been involved in competitive hacking (called Capture the Flag, or CTF) as both a player and a competition organizer. He holds a master’s degree in computer science from The Johns Hopkins University.

Richard Persinger brings 25 years of expertise in the Federal IT sector, with the past 14 years dedicated to HP Federal. During his time at HP, he has held numerous positions supporting the Print, PC, and Services divisions. He now holds the role of General Manager for HP’s Civilian and Intelligence go to market business.

Monica Rosser is the Executive Managing Director of Federal Health at Maximus. Since joining Maximus in 2023, she has been focused on driving the company’s strategic vision, growth, and customer expansion across the federal health landscape. As a seasoned executive and thought leader, Monica brings over 15 years of experience in driving transformational change, leveraging expertise in business growth, strategic leadership, business development, emerging technology, healthcare management, and customer experience. Her mission is to enable our nation to meet the evolving health challenges of citizens, soldiers, and Veterans by enabling a whole health view that provides equitable, positive, connected outcomes in all areas of life.

Previously, Monica served as Chief Growth Officer at Tria Federal and was the first female Chief Growth Officer at Favor Tech Consulting, achieving a remarkable 27% year-over-year revenue acceleration and contributing to a cumulative career impact of $4 billion.

Prior to these positions, Monica served in high-impact roles at SBG Technology Solutions, Deloitte, and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Monica earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and international studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, her law degree from Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law, and master’s certificate in Health Information Security and Privacy from George Washington University.

Rose Mata serves as the Senior Director of Federal Healthcare, Education and Finance across the Verizon organization. This includes leading a group or professionals across the mobility and wireline sides of business to partner with customers to deliver technology solutions.

Rose has held many leadership roles in her 19-year Verizon career, including those in the consumer and business segments and government sectors.

Rose holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix. Rose also serves on the board of directors at Santa Fe Montessori, a non-profit organization that provides early childhood education, at the foundation of educational success and is an active volunteer at several different volunteer programs.

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.

Mrs. Sweta Ladwa serves as Chief, Scientific Solutions Delivery Branch at the IT and Applications Center (ITAC) at NHLBI where she leads data science solutions delivery and product development to help NIH’s mission of turning discovery into health. She provides data management-related vision and leadership for NHLBI’s cloud-based data science ecosystem, BioData Catalyst (BDC). Additionally, she serves as the Scientific Program Director for the BDC Data Management Core, as well as Program Scientist for the NIH RECOVER Data Resource Core and Co-Chair for the NIH Cloud Platform Interoperability (NCPI) Steering Committee. She supports several NIH-wide efforts, including the Common Fund SysBio program, the Women’s Health Initiative, Controlled Access Data Repositories Taskforce, and the NIH FHIR Working Group, among many others.

Mrs. Ladwa has served as a consultant to agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on complex programs, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), The National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) supporting various data management, interoperability, FHIR development and testing, standards development and implementation, and other efforts to support the HHS mission.

Mrs. Ladwa earned her master’s degree in Public Health, with a focus in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, from The George Washington University, and her bachelor’s degree in Biology and Chemistry from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Kyle Nicholls Cobb, MS, currently serves as the acting Deputy Director for Technology and Products in the Office for Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technologies (OPHDST) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Prior to this position, she served as the Deputy Director of the Data Policy and Standards Division (DPSD) in OPHDST. Prior to coming to CDC, Ms. Cobb served as the Deputy Director of the Standards Division in the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT (ONC) as well as the Certification & Testing Division’s Tools & Testing Branch Chief where she led conformance testing for 21st Century Cures Act health IT certification requirements including United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) and Standardized API for patient and population services criterion. Ms. Cobb has nearly 20 years of experience in health and health IT policy, quality improvement, and information architecture and design. Ms. Cobb has led and participated in multiple electronic clinical quality measure (eCQM) development projects for both the CDC and Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). In addition to her measure development experience, Ms. Cobb also led consensus development standards projects at the National Quality Forums (NQF) where she provided subject matter expert for electronic clinical quality measures, behavioral health, and patient-reported outcomes.
Ms. Cobb holds a bachelor’s degree from the New School for Social Research, Eugene Lang College and a Master of Science in Information Science from Simmons University.

Avinash Shanbhag is the Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy and Executive Director of the Office of Standards, Certification, and Analysis. In this role, he advises the National Coordinator and the Deputy National Coordinator on health information technology matters, provides executive direction and control over ASTP/ONC’s technology portfolio, and fosters health information innovation.

Mr. Shanbhag oversees coordination with federal agencies and industry stakeholders for advancing health information technology interoperability for improved health care delivery. He leads ASTP/ONC’s standards coordination activities with all the health IT standards development organizations, including administration of the ONC Health IT Certification Program, the Certified Health IT Product Lists, and the certification testing tools.

Throughout his over 10-year career with ASTP/ONC, Mr. Shanbhag has held a variety of leadership positions, including serving as the Deputy Director of the Office of Technology, Director of the Testing Division, and the Director of the Nationwide Health Information Network. During his tenure at ASTP/ONC, he led the creation of the ONC testing and utilities platform to support health IT developers, developed a long term vision for the Nationwide Health Information Network, and successfully transitioned the operations of the network into the “eHealth Exchange.”

He has over 25 years of experience in developing enterprise software systems and managing large scale distributed software systems for healthcare industry. Prior to joining ASTP/ONC, Mr. Shanbhag served as the Director of Core Infrastructure at the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology under the National Cancer Institute (NCI). He was responsible for developing and operating the distributed network and semantic services used by all the NCI funded institutions to share research data in a privacy protective manner.

Mr. Shanbhag holds a Master of Chemical Engineering from University of Alberta, and a Master of Operations Research from University of Maryland. He also maintains a Service Oriented Architecture certificate and a certificate in Machine Learning from MIT Sloan School of Management.

Andre Fraser is the Regional Technology Officer Federal Healthcare at VMware by Broadcom.

Dr. John Giannini currently serves as a Health Science Policy Analyst in the Division of Technology and Platform Development at the NIH All of Us Research Program. In this role, he leads the development of EHR data acquisition strategy and manages the Center for Linkage and Acquisition of Data (CLAD) award. He works to expand the breadth and research utility of the All of Us dataset by incorporating additional passive data streams such as geospatial information, commercial claims, and EHR data. These data augment the program’s core resources—which also include survey responses, biospecimens, and wearable device data—giving researchers unprecedented opportunities to explore how biology, behavior, and environment interact to influence health. John received a B.S. in Physics from Gettysburg College and a Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of Maryland. He joined the All of Us Research Program as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow, where he developed data quality frameworks for assessing EHR data and led strategic planning for integrating new medical imaging and other emerging data types into the program.

Bryce Thompson has over 26 years of experience in Health Information Technology, specializing in strategic leadership, infrastructure, and cybersecurity. He has a proven track record at Intermountain Healthcare in developing technical roadmaps, leading strategic acquisitions, and optimizing EHR systems.