2026 Federal Cloud & Data Forum

Lisa Rosenmerkel was sworn in as Executive Director for Data Governance and Analytics in the Office of Enterprise Integration on June 17, 2024. In this role, she serves as VA’s Chief Data Officer and is responsible for leading efforts across VA to use Veteran and business data to drive informed, evidence-based decisions, managing VA data assets and guiding operational and strategic improvements to lifecycle data management. In her role as the co-chair of the VA Data Governance Council and the VA/DoD Joint Data and Analytics Executive Committee she collaborates with Departmental and Federal partners in data governance, ensuring data quality and developing joint requirements and standards. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Rosenmerkel served as Deputy Executive Director for Data Governance and Analytics since September 25, 2022.

Ms. Rosenmerkel joined the Federal government in 2002. Prior to joining the Department of Veterans Affairs, she supported the Treasury deployment of the American Rescue Plan, distributing more than $240 billion to state, local, and Tribal governments across the country to support their response to and recovery from the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Ms. Rosenmerkel received the OPM Presidential Management Fellow Mentor of the Year Award in 2019. She is a graduate of the 2020/2021 Treasury SES Candidate Development Program.

Michelle Zebrowski is the inaugural Chief Data Officer (CDO) for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), bringing nearly two decades of dedicated service to the agency. As CDO, she spearheads efforts to cultivate CBP’s data ecosystem, ensuring data accessibility, discoverability, and its strategic application for informed decision-making. This year, under her leadership, a data catalog has been deployed, encompassing over 95% of OIT-managed datasets, totaling more than 50 petabytes of data and nearly 300,000 data assets. Her leadership is pivotal in positioning CBP at the forefront of artificial intelligence adoption within the federal government, overseeing a portfolio of over 100 AI use cases, including the deployment of ChatCBP, which is transforming how 60,000 employees accomplish their daily work.

Michelle’s commitment to excellence has been recognized with numerous accolades, including the CBP Commissioner’s Award in both 2020 and 2024. She was also honored as the 2021 Commissioner’s Employee Spotlight for her volunteer efforts in animal welfare and received a CBPeople Spotlight Award. Additionally, Michelle received the 2026 Fed100 award and has been featured in CDO Magazine’s Global Data Power Women list for both 2024 and 2025. Her other honors include the 2024 GTSC Homeland Security Today – Holiday Hero Award for MVP Data Advancement, the 2025 GTSC Homeland Security Today Trailblazer Award, the 2025 Orange Slices National Security Award, and the 2024 Engage Homeland and National Security 100: Driving Innovation Forward award.

Nicole Thompson joined FedRAMP in January 2025 as the FedRAMP Security Director. She has over 15 years of experience in cybersecurity, specializing in hardware/software integration, vulnerability management and remediation, and penetration testing.

Nicole previously worked at the Defense Digital Service as the cybersecurity engineer running the Hack the Pentagon program.

She is passionate about improving risk management decision processes by relying on more meaningful security metrics.

David Raley is the Chief Digital Business Officer at Marine Corps Community Services (MCCS), where he leads enterprise-wide digital transformation initiatives that directly impact the quality of life for Marines and their families. As the founder of MCCS’s innovation capability and the architect behind its customer experience (CX) modernization strategy, David has redefined how mission-critical services are delivered across the Marine Corps.

He is the visionary behind Operation StormBreaker, a pioneering DevSecOps and pipeline-as-a-service framework that accelerates secure software delivery across the Department of Defense. Under his leadership, MCCS achieved the Marine Corps’ first authority-to-operate (ATO) via automated continuous delivery—setting a new benchmark for speed, compliance, and agility in government software development.

David’s work has been featured in FedScoop, Federal News Network, GovCIO Media & Research, and the ATARC Federal IT Newscast podcast, where he shares insights on agile ATOs, CX innovation, and cloud modernization. His efforts have saved MCCS an estimated $100K per application per month by reducing the cost of delay and streamlining acquisition and accreditation processes.

A frequent speaker at DoD and federal IT events, David brings a mission-first mindset to every conversation—bridging the gap between emerging technology and operational impact.

Kevin Murphy serves as NASA’s acting chief data officer, acting chief artificial intelligence officer, and the chief science data officer for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. He also leads the agency’s High End Computing Capability Portfolio.

As acting chief data officer and chief artificial intelligence officer, Murphy provides strategic leadership to the agency’s application and use of data and AI at a critical juncture where demand and adoption are rapidly increasing. He works to align NASA’s AI strategy with enterprise data governance to ensure responsible, transparent, and secure development, deployment, and risk management across the agency.

As the chief science data officer, Murphy works across NASA’s five science divisions to advance artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and data science for the agency’s scientific data. He oversees the strategic planning and implementation of NASA’s data and computing ecosystem, including high-end computing and cloud resources, ensuring these critical capabilities are efficient, reliable, and aligned with mission priorities. This stewardship enables gold standard, reproducible science while also supporting mission-critical engineering, modeling, and analysis activities across the agency for programs such as Artemis and future Moon-to-Mars exploration. Murphy’s leadership ensures NASA’s scientific data remain openly accessible and preserved for long-term discovery and innovation.

Previously, Murphy managed the data systems programs responsible for the production and distribution of data from NASA’s fleet of Earth-observing satellites to users around the world. He initiated the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program and led the Satellite Needs Assessment Working Group. During his tenure at the Goddard Space Flight Center, he developed and managed projects including near real-time science data production systems, search engines, scientific data visualization systems, and Your Gateway to NASA Earth Observation Data | NASA Earthdata.

Murphy’s leadership has been recognized with numerous awards, including the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, Robert H. Goddard Exceptional Achievement for Engineering, Charles S. Falkenberg Award, and Fed 100, and the 2025 AGU Open Science Group Award among others.

He holds a master’s degree in Geographic Sciences and has completed coursework for a doctorate in Geography from the University of Maryland.

Leslie Nettles serves as the Acting Deputy Chief Information Security Officer for the Information Security and Privacy Group (ISPG). Leslie holds dual master’s degrees in Digital Forensics/Cyber Investigation and Business Administration from University of Maryland Global Campus, with expertise in Governance, Risk, Compliance, Data Privacy, and Breach Response.  Leslie currently leads privacy oversight at CMS as the Senior Official for Privacy and Director of the Division of Security and Privacy Policy and Oversight, drawing on broad experience across defense and civilian sectors to strengthen the agency’s security and privacy posture.

Kevin Walsh is a Director in GAO’s Information Technology and Cybersecurity team. He oversees work related to AI, Census, CIO authorities, legacy modernizations, and satellite and space systems. He has led reviews covering topics related to the authorities of federal Chief Information Officers, management of legacy IT systems, coordination of IT contracts, and assessments of IT-related risk.

Kevin joined GAO in June 2006, and led projects related to FITARA and GAO’s High Risk area on Improving the Management of IT Acquisitions and Operations.

Kevin earned a master’s degree in business administration from Virginia Tech. Kevin earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Wade Zarriello is the Director of Infrastructure & User Services Group at CMS.

Joe Croghan is the Associate Director of Informatics at the Office of Cyber Infrastructure and Computational Biology at NIAID.

Anish Patel serves as the Head of Federal Civilian at Cloudflare, with a mission of helping to build a better Internet for everyone. Since joining three years ago, Anish has led go-to-market for Cloudflare’s Federal business and his team is directly responsible for improving the resiliency of many services that citizens rely on every day.

Will Erb serves as Managing Director of Filevine Federal, where he executes the strategic vision for bringing Filevine’s AI-native platform to the federal government. In this capacity, he leads the division across go-to-market strategy, procurement vehicle positioning, and delivery, and drives federal product development, shaping platform capabilities to meet the operational and mission-specific demands of government customers. He oversees Filevine’s positioning at the frontier of agentic AI, advancing autonomous, operational AI agents that execute complex case, matter, document, and workflow tasks within the customer’s own security boundary, without data extraction. This next-generation capability replaces fragmented point solutions with a single configurable platform where AI acts, not just assists, positioning Filevine as one of the fastest-growing startups in the world, at the center of real innovation across the AI sector.

As a leader and entrepreneur, Will’s career spans early-stage technology startups, investment firms, and federal contractors, working across the intersection of commercial innovation and applied AI. His work designing and developing AI-enabled platforms during the formative period of applied enterprise AI grounded his conviction that the organizations who win are those that unify their operations around intelligent systems rather than bolting AI onto fragmented legacy tools. He now applies that thesis at federal scale, translating the pace of commercial innovation into solutions that meet the accountability standards of government missions.