Defense IT Summit

Lt. Col. Charlie Bahk is the inaugural Director of the U.S. Marine Corps Software Factory (MCSWF), a pilot effort to create a world-class Marine-led software development capability. Charlie also serves as the Deputy Commandant for Information, Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps (USMC). In these capacities, he enables USMC modernization efforts by leveraging emerging technologies to support commanders at the speed of operations, increasing lethality and readiness. Previously, Charlie served as the Occupational Field Manager for Communications, the second-largest community in the Marine Corps. He is a combat veteran with multiple overseas deployments and received a Bronze Star for wartime service. A native of San Antonio, Texas, Charlie received a Bachelor of Science in Marine Engineering Systems degree from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.

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. Jason Bonci is the Department of the Air Force Chief Technology Officer at Office of the Chief Information Officer. His responsibilities are to drive the adoption, resilience, and strategic technical vision of the Enterprise IT portfolio.

Prior to his current position, he was the Senior Director of Public Sector Engineering at Akamai Technologies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There he led a team of 60 engineering, operations, and consulting professionals in designing and operating Akamai’s public sector portfolio. This included being the technology provider behind the Department of Defense’s Global Content Delivery Service program that powered delivery, security, and optimizations for over 2,000 capabilities. Under his architectural guidance, this service became part of the technical underpinning of the DoD’s internet access delivery system, the Air Force enterprise cloud program (CloudOne) and the Army’s identity and credential access management system. Mr. Bonci also designed and fielded the Shepherd protective domain name service program in conjunction with Defense Digital Service which helped protect Defense Industrial Base companies and national critical infrastructure. Over this 14 year tenure, he had numerous roles in the public sector, including engineering management and as an individual contributor in systems engineering and web applications.

Prior to Akamai, Mr. Bonci was involved in the Open Source community as an engineer at VA Linux and as a contributor to the Debian Linux Distribution. Having worked as an independent security researcher, he is a contributor to the DoD Vulnerability Disclosure Program. He is also an Eagle Scout.

Dr. Amanda Bullock is an accomplished Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lead at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), where she is driving digital transformation and modernization initiatives in AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics. With a Bachelor of Science in Statistics from Eastern Kentucky University and a Master of Science in Applied Statistics from Wright State University, Amanda brings a strong foundation in statistical analysis to her work.

She earned her PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) in 2013, specializing in Statistical Signal Processing. Following her postdoc work in Non-Destructive Evaluation and Non-GPS navigation, Amanda taught mathematics, biostatistics, statistics, signal processing, and data science at Wright State University, Central State University, and AFIT.

During her tenure at Central State University, Amanda was selected for a prestigious Fellowship at the Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, where she worked in the Survivability and Lethality Analysis Division. This experience further solidified her expertise in advanced analytics and AI.

In 2017, Amanda entered civil service and served as the Project Engineer for the LEGACY program, an Air Force STEM internship program. She then went on to lead the Enterprise Architecture Modeling team in 2019 before becoming the AFRL Deputy Chief Data Officer in the Digital Capabilities Directorate in 2022.

Currently, Amanda serves as the AI Lead for the Digital Capabilities Directorate, where she aims to reduce business toil through AI, connect AFRL, DoD, and industry AI efforts, and upskill the workforce in AI/ML/Advanced Analytics. Amanda’s research interests include Enterprise Architecture, STEM education for underrepresented populations, Advanced Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Signal Processing. She is passionate about leveraging her expertise in AI and analytics to drive innovation and modernization in the Air Force and beyond.

From AI ethics pioneer to DoD Cybersecurity leader, Chris Harr has been on a mission-driven journey since 2010. Currently, he leads Wiz’s Department of Defense and Intelligence Community go-to market, where he is helping the DoD secure their multi-cloud deployments. Prior to Wiz, Chris was the DoD Federal Sales Director at Hyperscience, and served on their first AI Ethics Steering Committee. In this capacity Chris helped organizations in the DoD and IC adopt artificial intelligence and machine learning to eliminate the time tax associated with mission critical operations. Chris previously worked at Splunk where he helped the DoD increase cyber and insider threat posture. He has also held roles at Hewlett Packard Enterprise and immixGroup. Chris is a past AFCEA DC Board of Directors member, where he chaired the Military IT Awards and AFCEA DC STEM Scholarship. Chris holds a Master’s degree in Technology Management from Georgetown University and enjoys spending time with his family.

Edmond Kuqo specializes in large scale enterprise systems, mobile solutions, data analytics, enterprise resource planning and software application development and delivery. Edmond focused on open source technologies and many newly emerged open source tools with emphasis on CI/CD automation, RMF cATO, Zero Trust Architecture, DevSecOps, Agile & AI/ML. He is a hands-on practical leader with experience in developing and delivering enterprise systems for on-prem and cloud deployments with emphasis on cybersecurity and Cyber Ready.

As Acting Director of the Technical Management and Analysis Directorate of the Deputy to the Commander for Systems Engineering and Acquisition Logistics, Mr. Mills serves as the technical leadership expert and principal advisor to the Commander, Executive Director, and Chief Engineer MCSC, including Program Executive Office Land Systems (PEO-LS) and subordinate activities, for cyberspace, cybersecurity, and information technology (IT) management. In this role, Mr. Mills is the MCSC lead for future engineering of the Service Information Environment (IE) and its primary construct the Marine Corps Enterprise Network (MCEN).

Prior to joining MCSC, Mr. Mills served as the Chief Information Officer for a DC based defense firm where he developed the company’s software engineering, network engineering, and cybersecurity competencies. Mr. Mills was an active participant with the Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Information Sharing (DIB CS) partnership, and worked to encourage industry to share threat information. Before becoming CIO, Mr. Mills served as Director of IT and built the company’s technology infrastructure from its earliest iterations; developed custom business software; implemented advanced cyber defense, detection, and action methods; and pioneered network threat detection using data sonification.

Mr. Mills began his career as a video editor, software developer and network engineer in the media and advertising industry before moving to the defense sector. As a contractor, Mr. Mills was a network engineer and software developer for NAVSEA and OPNAV before becoming a partner in the defense start-up firm he would help to build over the next 20 years.

Mr. Mills holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Technology from University of Maryland University College.

Bharath Nagaraj, Field Technical Director, AI, for Cohesity, excels in architecting data protection for Fortune 100 clients. With a focus on Security and Data Protection, Bharath uniquely fuses AI thought leadership with innovative ideas for driving data management use cases. Specializing in transitioning from legacy to hybrid architectures, Bharath empowers enterprises with strategic AI solutions, fortifying their cyber resilience against threats like Ransomware.

Angelica (Angel) Phaneuf is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at the Army Software Factory (ASF). Prior to the Army, Angel was the Director of Security Engineering at Kessel Run and built and ran the innovative security program under the Air Force. Angel has a husband and two kids and resides in the Greater Boston area.

With a diverse background spanning public sector cloud solutions, national security, and hands-on roles in government, Frank boasts a multidisciplinary expertise in areas of cybersecurity policy, leading large-scale migration projects, and capturing billion-dollar contracts. His dedication to public service is underscored by significant roles in homeland security and defense, combined with a robust academic foundation in technology.

Mr. Korie Seville serves as the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) Hosting and Compute Center (HaCC) Technical Director. In this role, Mr. Seville is responsible for the strategic technical direction of various DISA HaCC data center and cloud initiatives, including the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) and Zero Trust.

Prior to becoming the Technical Director, Mr. Seville was the HaCC’s cloud infrastructure architect. As a member of the HaCC, he was responsible for architecting and integrating commercial cloud hosted solutions into the DoD network infrastructure.

Before joining the HaCC, Mr. Seville was an infrastructure architect for the Cloud Computing Program Office (CCPO) providing support to critical cloud enabling projects to include the Cloud Layered Obfuscation Application Kit, Global Directory, Azure Hosting Infrastructure, and the Commercial Virtual Remote (CVR) environment, which brought Microsoft 365 to over a million Department of Defense employees during the global pandemic. Also, Mr. Seville received a Bachelor of Computer Science from the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania

Dr. William W. Streilein is the Chief Technology Officer for the Chief Digital and AI Office of the DoD, providing strategic awareness, direction and leadership for enterprise scale data, analytical and AI capabilities.

Prior to his current role, William worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory where he served as principal staff in the Biotechnology and Human Systems Division. He supported efforts across the division focusing on concept, strategy, and program development in bioengineering, bioinformatics, and biodefense and leveraged his technical and leadership experience to emphasize the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to solve national biosecurity, health, and human performance challenges. William was also the leader of the Cyber Analytics and Decisions Group, where his research interests focused on cyber security, passive network and traffic analysis, streaming analytics, and computer vision. Prior to MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Streilein spent nine years working as a software engineer within the private sector.

He serves as a chair of the Artificial Intelligence for Cyber Security (AICS) and Robust Artificial Intelligence Systems Assurance (RAISA) academic workshops and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and an active member of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). William is a recognized leader in areas such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, cyber security, and statistical analysis.

Dr. Streilein holds a BA degree in mathematics from Austin College, an MM degree in electronic and computer music from the University of Miami, and a PhD degree in cognitive and neural systems from Boston University. He is a senior member of the IEEE. He has been at Lincoln Laboratory since 1998.

Mr. Rob Vietmeyer is the Department of Defense Chief Software Officer for the Deputy Chief Information Officer for Information Enterprise (DCIO(IE)). In this position, he is the principal advisor to the DoD CIO for the implementation and evolution of the Department’s Software Modernization Strategy. Mr. Vietmeyer will drive strategy implementation, establishing the foundation to deliver resilient software at speed and scale advocating for the latest software development approaches, cloud services, and process transformation. Through collaboration with other DoD Components, government, industry, and academia partners, he is responsible for advancing the Department’s adoption of DevSecOps practices, agile software development, and cloud native modernization.

Donald E. Yeske serves as the Director of the National Security Cyber Division (NSCD) in the DHS Office of the Chief Information Security Officer. As the Director of NSCD, Mr. Yeske is responsible for governance of National Security Systems (NSS) across the DHS enterprise, management of communications security (COMSEC) for all DHS networks and infrastructure, and leadership of zero trust implementation across DHS.

Prior to joining DHS, Mr. Yeske served in the Office of the Department of the Navy (DON) Chief Information Officer (CIO), most recently as the DON Chief Technology Officer (CTO). There, Mr. Yeske and the CTO team produced a series of Design Concepts operationalizing the DON’s Information Superiority Vision; designated the first enterprise information technology (IT) service for DON-wide use (the Naval Integrated Modeling Environment—providing collaborative digital engineering capabilities for the Navy and Marine Corps); and provided leadership for ongoing efforts to operationalize Zero Trust principles throughout the DON and Department of Defense (DoD), including stand-up of the DoD’s Zero Trust Portfolio Management Office, and ongoing implementation of the Navy’s Flank Speed environment—a cloud-native platform built to embody zero trust principles that now serves over 500,000 sailors and civilians worldwide.

Before joining the DON CIO, Mr. Yeske served in a number of critical leadership positions for the Navy and Marine Corps. At Headquarters Marine Corps, Deputy Commandant for Information (2019-2022), Mr. Yeske led the team that developed a plan to synchronize technical and management actions across more than 57 Marine Corps programs, projects, and initiatives and more than $1.6B in spending to transform the Marine Corps Enterprise Network in support of Force Design 2030 and other strategic initiatives.

During his civilian career, Mr. Yeske has deployed three times, for a total of three years, into active combat zones; and, he has been recognized with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Civilian Service Commendation Award (for his service in Afghanistan) and the Marine Corps Commendation for Meritorious Civilian Service (for his work on the Marine Corps Net Mod Plan). Mr. Yeske began his career in the United States Air Force as a Strategic Communications Technician.

Mr. Yeske currently holds an Associate of Applied Science from the Community College of the Air Force and a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology Software Engineering from the University of Phoenix, and he is currently completing a Master of Science in Government Information Leadership, with concentration on National Security and Cyberspace Studies, at National Defense University College of Information and Cyberspace.