AI Gov: Data Insights

Katherine Blizinsky, Ph.D, is the policy director for the All of Us Research Program. A neuroscientist and geneticist specializing in research on mental health and cognition, with a focus on health disparities, Dr. Blizinsky completed her doctoral work at Northwestern University. She is an alumna of the American Society of Human Genetics/National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) Genetics and Public Policy Fellowship and has policy experience with both the legislative and executive branches. On Capitol Hill, Dr. Blizinsky worked with the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee under Ranking Member Patty Murray, where, among other roles, Dr. Blizinsky participated in the drafting and negotiation of the 21st Century Cures Act. Following her time on the Hill, she moved to NIH, where she held simultaneous appointments as policy advisor to the All of Us Research Program—concentrating on issues of data access, informed consent, and participant privacy—and as an intramural research fellow with the NHGRI Health Disparities Unit. In addition to her current role with All of Us, Dr. Blizinsky continues her research as an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at Rush University in Chicago, working with the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center.

Anil Chaudhry has over 20 years of progressive leadership experience in technology delivery, operations, and program management in the defense, intelligence, and national security sectors. At the Artificial Intelligence CoE, Chaudhry advises federal agencies on establishing mature data governance and management practices, developing innovative approaches for leveraging data as a strategic asset, and laying the foundation for advancing data discovery, access, and use through artificial intelligence and machine learning. Prior to joining the CoE, Chaudhry served in critical leadership positions within US Customs and Border Protection and as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) at the Defense Business Transformation Agency. Chaudhry served as an enlisted soldier in the U.S. Army Chemical Corps and as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army Transportation Corps. Chaudhry was one of three DHS employees selected to attend the National War College in 2016 as part of the DHS Senior Succession Management Program.

Dr. Tina Hernandez-Boussard is an Associate Professor at Stanford University in Medicine (Biomedical Informatics), Biomedical Data Sciences, Surgery and Epidemiology & Population Health (by courtesy). Her background and expertise are in the field of biomedical informatics, health services research, and epidemiology. In her current work, Dr. Hernandez-Boussard utilizes high-volume digital data to accurately and efficiently monitor, measure, and predict healthcare outcomes using natural language processing and machine/deep learning techniques to analyze both structured and unstructured data. Through this developed infrastructure, her team captures heterogenous data sources, transforms these diverse data to knowledge, and uses this knowledge to improve patient care and outcomes. More recently, her work focuses on the development of artificial intelligence technology to develop more precise, fair and patient-centric treatment approaches that maximize benefits and minimize risks for patients.

Melissa Harris is a staff writer and researcher for GovernmentCIO Media & Research, where she covers federal health and defense IT and co-hosts HealthCast.

Prior to joining the team in October 2019, Melissa worked as a technology reporter for MeriTalk, where she covered IT acquisition, Congressional hearings, and federal technology reports and events. She was also a local news reporter for the New Jersey Hills Media Group, the Editor-in-Chief at The Oberlin Review, and an intern reporter at Homeland Security Today.

Melissa earned her Bachelor of Arts in history and English at Oberlin College.

Amy Kluber is editor-in-chief of GovCIO Media & Research. Previously she managed two aviation publications at B2B media company Access Intelligence. She was nominated for The Innovation in Aerospace Journalism & Publishing Award for launching and hosting an aviation podcast. Prior to that she wrote news scripts and produced videos for the network Newsy. Follow Amy on Twitter: @amykluber

She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Having traveled around the world since an early age, she grew up a U.S. Army brat born in Vicenza, Italy, and spent most of her youth living in Seoul, South Korea.

In her free time, you may find her at Disney World.

Gina Scott Ligon is co-founder and director of NCITE, a Department of Homeland Security academic Center of Excellence for Counterterrorism and Targeted Violence Research.

An Oklahoma native who witnessed the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Ligon dedicated her career to studying the subject of extremist violence and has established herself as a national subject matter expert in this field. She has used her doctorate in industrial and organizational psychology to explore how terrorist and violent extremist organizations work and are led. She has been a professor, journal editor, author, and speaker on the subject of terrorist and extremist violence. Her strident work in the field, combined with her collaboration with 50 leading terrorism research experts, led to the creation of NCITE.

In 2020, in the midst of an historic year with challenges swirling around a pandemic and deeply divided nation, the University of Nebraska Omaha launched the center, funded by the Department of Homeland Security to be its next Center of Excellence for Counterterrorism and Targeted Violence Research for the next 10 years.

Ligon received her Ph.D. in industrial and organizational psychology and minor in quantitative psychology from the University of Oklahoma. Prior to joining UNO, she was a full-time faculty member at Villanova University in the Graduate Programs in Human Resource Development. She also worked as a director of performance consulting at St. Louis-based Psychological Associates. Her research program focuses on the identification and development of high-level talent. She has specific expertise in innovation and leadership and has published over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on these subjects.

Kate Macri is a deputy editor for GovCIO Media & Research, where she primarily covers the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.

Prior to joining the team in June 2020, she covered the video game industry and small businesses for Zenger News. She also covered banking and finance news for Banking Dive, a B2B media publication based in Washington D.C., and reported logistics, supply chain and shipping news for Supply Chain Dive.

If she isn’t boxing or walking her boxer, you can find Kate with her nose in a Stephen King novel, slaying monsters in the world of Final Fantasy or waiting for a blue public call box to land in her front yard.

Scott E. Simpson attended the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Affairs.  He has a Juris Doctor from American University’s Washington College of Law and a Master of Arts from the School of International Service.  Scott has been with the Department of Homeland Security for over ten years.  He began with the Office of Procurement Operations as a Contracting Officer and supported the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Office of the Chief Information Officer, and the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer.  Scott is now with the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer’s Procurement Innovation Lab where he serves as the Digital Transformation Lead and supports acquisition teams across the Department.  He is also the Product Owner for the Artificial Intelligence for Past Performance project.  He is a 2020 DITAP graduate and an Agile process enthusiast.