Health IT Summit

Tony is Research Programs Manager and an Associate Researcher in VA’s Office of Research and Development, where he leads complex interagency programs including the award-winning ASPIRE program, manages strategic partnerships, performs public outreach, provides education, and serves as a policy, ethics, and AI SME. While in government, Tony has used his expertise and leadership to guide strategy at multiple agencies, to author significant policy documents like the U.S. National AI R&D Strategy and NASA’s Trustworthy AI Policy, and in service of several VA, interagency, and professional groups. Before government, Tony was an accomplished professor, receiving grants and awards for his innovative curricula, methods, and programs, and the student organizations he founded. Tony holds five degrees and two graduate certificates from world-leading institutions including St Andrews, MIT, UVA, and Georgetown.

Jimmy Cesario is a seasoned leader in the health IT sector with extensive experience bridging industry expertise and federal health IT initiatives. With over a decade of experience working closely with federal health agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Jimmy supports customers in their efforts to accelerate digital transformation and enhance public health and community care missions.

In his role on Datadog’s Enterprise Federal team, Jimmy is dedicated to delivering advanced observability solutions to federal IT customers. His focus is on improving system visibility, optimizing performance, and ensuring site reliability, ultimately contributing to seamless customer experiences.
Before joining Datadog, he contributed to working groups that developed healthcare and interoperability standards, including HL7 and FHIR, for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Dr. Carolyn Clancy serves as the Assistant Under Secretary for Health (AUSH) for the Office of Discovery, Education & Affiliate Networks (DEAN), Veterans Health Administration, effective July 22, 2018. The Office of the DEAN fosters collaboration and knowledge transfer with facility-based educators, researchers and clinicians within VA, and between VA and its affiliates.

Prior to her current position, she served as the Acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the second-largest Cabinet in the department, with a $246 billion budget and over 424,000 employees serving in VA medical centers, clinics, benefits offices, and national cemeteries, overseeing the development and implementation of enterprise-wide policies, programs, activities and special interests. She also served as the VHA Executive in Charge, with the authority to perform the functions and duties of the Under Secretary for Health, directing a health care system with a $68 billion annual budget, overseeing the delivery of care to more than 9 million enrolled Veterans. Previously, she served as the Interim Under Secretary for Health from 2014-2015, the VHA AUSH for Organizational Excellence, overseeing VHA’s performance, quality, safety, risk management, systems engineering, auditing, oversight, ethics and accreditation programs from 2013-2014, as well as ten years as the Director, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

She is a general internist and health services researcher, a graduate of Boston College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She is a highly experienced and nationally recognized physician executive.

Jothi Dugar is a leading cybersecurity executive who knows what it’s like to be the only female executive in the room. She is a catalyst for change, inspiring transformational leadership as a holistic wellness specialist and certified life coach. She is also an international best-selling author & motivational speaker, dance director, and mom of three.

With over 25 years of experience, Jothi leverages her expertise to serve as Chief Information Security Officer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s Center for Information Technology (CIT) and raises the bar on cybersecurity every day using her holistic and forward-thinking mindset to provide innovative thought leadership. In this role, Jothi established and matured CIT’s Information Security Program and leads CIT’s coordinated response and remediation to the GAO audit of NIH’s information security controls.

Jothi has also been a profound champion of wellness, staff development, diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. As an Executive Sponsor of Employee Engagement, she created new initiatives to enhance employee well-being and workforce development. She serves as a professional coach for NIH employees and initiated the first CIT Mentorship Program.

Jothi recently served as Acting Deputy Director of CIT for two years, where she served as the focal point to lead the strategic vision of a $500M enterprise with over 1,200 staff members. Before joining CIT, Jothi served as the CISO at the NIH Clinical Center for eight years. Jothi holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland.

Andrea Fletcher is the Chief Digital Strategy Officer (CDSO) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). She is the first person to hold this role, and also serves as the Director of the Digital Service at CMS, an agency team of the United States Digital Service. At CMS she is responsible for digital transformation and modernization efforts, promoting interoperability and public access to health data, and recruiting the next generation of technical talent into federal service. Prior to taking on this new role, she served in the United States Digital Service as a product manager.

Before joining the federal government, Andrea spent most of her career traveling around the world. She has worked on digital health systems across more than 20 countries, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. She has built mobile apps for healthcare workers, integrated biometric IDs into electronic health record systems, designed national-level interoperability layers, and deployed new disease surveillance systems making contributions to pandemic responses in Ebola, HIV, and COVID-19.

Mike Gregory is Chief Information Security Officer for CDW Healthcare. Mike is a seasoned information technology security professional with experience in securing organizations through their digital transformation journeys for over 36 years, 16 years in healthcare information security. Mike has an in-depth understanding of information security and healthcare operations to effectively drive initiatives in data protection, compliance and risk management, resiliency, incident response, regulatory auditing, and maturing privacy and security programs. Prior to joining CDW, Mike served as Information Security Officer of Powers Health where he was responsible for supporting business initiatives, elevating competencies, and disciplines by advancing strategic cybersecurity plans through education, compliance, and maturity modeling. In his prior role, Mike was responsible for the implementation of the hospital system’s identity and access control program, incident response and disaster recovery strategies, and key technology innovations supporting 12,000 users across 70 locations across the region. Mike is a retired U.S. Air Force officer, holds a master’s degree in business administration and a Green Belt Six Sigma certification from Indiana University Northwest. In addition, he is a Certified Information System Security Professional and a Certified HIPAA Professional. He is the author of “Maturing an Information Technology Privacy Program: Assessment, Improvement, and Change Leadership” published by IGI Global Publications.

In December 2023 Nikolaos Ipiotis was appointed as the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Chief Information Officer (CIO).  In this role he oversees all the IT operations, software development and cybersecurity initiatives.

Prior to ARPA-H, Nikolaos Ipiotis was the Chief Data Officer (CDO) for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  In this role, Nikolaos oversees the HHS data governance, works to increase workforce data skills, develops, and publishes the HHS Open Data strategy, implements systems and processes to improve data sharing across the department and federal government by developing data inventories and expedited data sharing agreements.  In addition, Nikolaos oversees compliance with Records Management (RM), the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), and management of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI).  Nikolaos is a member of the Federal CDO Council where he co-chairs the Data Sharing Working Group (DSWG).  Nikolaos concurrently served as the HHS IPv6 Integrated Project Team (IPT) Lead in response to the OMB mandate M-21-07, since the IPT was formed in January of 2021.  In this role, he led the development of the HHS IPv6 Policy and later the HHS IPv6 Implementation Plan.

Prior to joining the HHS Office of the CIO, Nikolaos served the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Center of Information Technology (CIT) as a service area manager for Hosting and Storage Services, managing multiple systems for various HHS business units and other government agencies. Nikolaos also served as the infrastructure lead for the National Science Foundation where he managed the entire Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and the modernization initiative to deliver IT services effectively and cost efficiently.

Nikolaos has more than 25 years of IT experience, managing various sizes of delivery teams and various types of key projects and initiatives.  He is seasoned in managing resources to produce optimal results that include building capabilities, cost savings and optimization, systems integration, service delivery, data management, and infrastructure operations.  He has experience and provided direction in the full lifecycle of IT systems development, from concept and requirements to analysis and design, to implementation and testing and the finally the transition to production and operations and maintenance support.  Prior to joining the federal government, Nikolaos worked as a management consultant working in a variety of federal government and private sector organizations such as the Presidential Transition Team for the General Services Administration (GSA), Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Treasury and Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).

Nikolaos holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, all from George Mason University.

Anuj J. Kapadia is a Distinguished R&D Scientist and Section Head for Advanced Computing in Health Sciences at Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL). He is also an Adjunct Professor of Radiology, Physics, and Medical Physics at Duke University. Dr. Kapadia’s work focuses on AI, ML, and high-performance computing in health applications. He has over 20 years of experience in simulation and modeling, data analytics for security and health, and scientific research management. His work has been funded by the DOE, DOD, DHS, NIH, and the NC Biotech Center. His work has received acclaim in press articles, national and international conferences and he has won awards for his teaching, mentorship, and leadership roles. He has mentored 33 students and post-docs and has authored over 100 journal and conference papers. Dr. Kapadia is a member of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Society for Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers, and a fellow of the American Association for Physicists in Medicine.

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.

Dr. Joseph (Joe) Lewis serves as the Chief Information Security Officer and Director of the Cybersecurity Program Office for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In this capacity he provides strategic direction and implementation of CDC’s cybersecurity and privacy program to ensure the cybersecurity and privacy of CDC’s data, systems, staff, and infrastructure. In this capacity he serves on CDC’s IT and Data Governance Executive Committee and the Enterprise Risk Management Board, and he has an active hand in the Agency’s Data Modernization Initiative.

Joe joined CDC with broad experience and expertise in strategic planning, coalition building, IT service delivery, risk management framework compliance and cybersecurity program implementation.

In his previous assignment, he served as the Director for Cyber Assessment Strategy within the Office of Enterprise Assessments at the Department of Energy (DOE). In this role he oversaw the evaluation of the overall performance of the DOE’s classified and unclassified cybersecurity programs across all DOE locations.

Before joining DOE Joe served as Chief of the Morale, Welfare and Recreation Systems Support Division (SSD) of the US Army Installation Management Command (IMCOM), CIO/G6. In that role, he leveraged his experience and skills to implement and manage a global IT and Cybersecurity program for IMCOM’s IT portfolio of systems. He served as the Senior Cybersecurity and Risk Management Advisor to the Chief Information Officer/G6. Before his federal service, Joe worked as a private sector Production and Operations Manager. He served honorably in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2000-2007.

Joe is an accomplished cybersecurity senior executive. He holds multiple industry certifications in cybersecurity and project management, including Certified Chief Information Security Officer (CCISO), Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information System Manager (CISM), and Project Management Professional (PMP), among others. He is a graduate of the Carnegie Mellon University Chief Information Security Officer’s Executive Education Program. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Information Systems and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix. He earned a Master of Public Service and Administration from Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and completed his PhD in Cybersecurity Leadership at Capitol Technology University.

Terry Luedtke is the Chief Architect and Product Engineering Director for VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In this role, he leads the technical integration of a new EHR with a wide range of VA systems, including those necessary to support the transition of over 100 local health record systems to a single enterprise EHR. Terry joined the VA a decade ago and has been working to improve the electronic health record ever since, first with the iEHR, then VistA Evolution and now EHR Modernization.

Terry began his federal career working at the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. For over a decade he led teams developing and hosting services providing health information to the public, including MedlinePlus. They also developed tooling supporting the terminology work performed at NLM which is critical to interoperability in health care.

Prior to joining Federal service, he was an engineer at Ford Electronics where he learned the value of statistical process control and working with people.

Terry holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Iowa State University and a master’s degree in computer science 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.

Brian Mazanec is the Deputy Director, Center for Preparedness within the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

In Brian’s role as Deputy Director of the Center for Preparedness, he helps lead the office responsible for all aspects of preparation for events such as disease outbreaks, natural disasters, cyber attacks, and intentional attacks with chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons. This work is closely coordinated with other offices within ASPR, as well as other related components within HHS, other U.S. government departments and agencies, and international allies and partners. Brian’s responsibilities include oversight and management of the following component offices: Security, Vetting, and Protection; Data, Analytics & Information Advantage; Critical Infrastructure Protection; Health Care Readiness; Medical Reserve Corps; Planning and Exercises; Continuity; and the Secretary’s Operations Center.

Prior to joining ASPR, Brian served at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), where he was the senior executive responsible for leading the agency’s Strategic Warfare and Intelligence portfolio.  He led and managed numerous teams evaluating a variety of national security programs and activities related to biological and other emerging threats; intelligence community management; security and counterintelligence; sensitive activities and programs; personnel vetting; and space policy and operations. In addition, Brian led GAO’s efforts to establish an Insider Threat Program and other internal security-related initiatives. Prior to GAO, Brian worked on WMD issues at the Defense Intelligence Agency, Office of the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters, and the Joint Staff J5 Combating WMD directorate.

Brian received his Ph.D. in Biodefense from George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Richmond and a M.S. in defense and strategic studies from Missouri State University’s Department of Defense and Strategic Studies. In addition to his work in government, Brian’s teaches graduate level courses at several local universities, and he has authored or co-authored multiple academic books on cyber issues.  He lives in Fairfax, Virginia with his wife and four children

Lia is an experienced leader in federal civilian operations with 12 years of experience in the government contracting industry. She serves as the Vice President of Highlight’s Health & Citizen Solutions group, overseeing the delivery teams tasked with developing solutions to ensure excellent delivery and impactful solutions for public health and federal civilian customers. Throughout her career, she has successfully managed and delivered large-scale projects for various federal agencies, including USAID, State Department, EPA, and SBA. Her passion is providing oversight support to Highlight’s professional services portfolio, where she focuses on ensuring that each customer receives top-quality services and is highly satisfied with the results. Lia’s commitment to excellence and meticulous attention to detail make her a valuable asset to every mission, and her expertise helps to ensure that every project is executed flawlessly from start to finish.

Wendy Nilsen, Ph.D. is the Deputy Division Director in the Information and Intelligent Systems Division of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate at NSF. Previously, she was the leader of the joint NSF-NIH Smart Health program. Her work has focused on the intersection of artificial intelligence and human health and functioning. She serves as numerous federal technology initiatives. Prior to joining NSF, Wendy was at the National Institutes of Health.

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.

John Rusnak is Vice President of Federal Health Solutions, Leidos Health and Civil Sector. In this role, he focuses on delivering innovative solutions to the nation’s Veterans and active-duty service members across the VA, DHA, and Military Health System. He also leads Leidos’s state health ecosystem portfolio across the U.S.

Mr. Rusnak brings more than 20 years of experience in managing the strategic objectives for technology across numerous Federal agencies including VA/DoD Technology and Health Integration Division, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and multiple branches of the U.S. military. His work has included overseeing integrated information technology, integrated cyber security solutions, health innovation and technology, enterprise modernization, cloud adoption, and developing in an agile framework while supporting DevSecOps.

Prior to joining Leidos, his prior roles include President of an 8(a) WOSB, Program Manager/Chief Technology Officer for the CMS Alliance to Modernize Healthcare, Chief Architect for Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems and Senior Technical Advisor and Chief Architect to the CSAF, USAF SAF CIO/A6 and AF/A4, Technical Director and the Chief Architect of the Integrated Data Environment/Global Transportation Network Convergence Program at USTRANSCOM, and Chief Engineer/Chief Architect for Global Combat Support Systems Air Force Knowledge Services.

Throughout his career, he has driven innovative solutions and championed technology advancement. His contributions have led to modernized systems that make data more accessible, more collaborative, and better able to support hundreds of thousands of end users.

John received his degrees from Indiana University. He holds BS in CIS and ODT and a minor in Telecommunications.

Erin serves as the Field CNIO at ServiceNow and is a seasoned Healthcare Enterprise Architect and Nurse. With over 25 years of experience in direct clinical care, healthcare management, and healthcare informatics, she has held significant roles at McKesson, Johnson & Johnson, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Her mission encompasses developing clinical workflow systems to improve patient care and clinician experience while using AI to reduce administrative burden and clinician burnout. Erin holds a Masters in Nursing Informatics and multiple certifications, including Board Certifications and Architecture Excellence. Her career highlights include managing a 100-bed NICU at CHOP and developing InterQual content and interoperability at McKesson. Erin is also a NJ Reserve Medical Corps Nurse and is pursuing a certificate in AI in Healthcare from Stanford University.

Micky Tripathi is the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he leads the formulation of the federal health IT strategy and coordinates federal health IT policies, standards, programs, and investments. He also serves as acting chief AI officer for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Mr. Tripathi has over 20 years of experience across the health IT landscape. He most recently served as Chief Alliance Officer for Arcadia, a health care data and software company focused on population health management and value-based care, the project manager of the Argonaut Project, an industry collaboration to accelerate the adoption of FHIR, and a board member of HL7, the Sequoia Project, the CommonWell Health Alliance, and the CARIN Alliance.

Mr. Tripathi served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MAeHC), a non-profit health IT advisory and clinical data analytics company. He was also the founding President and CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange, a statewide HIE partnered with the Regenstrief Institute, an Executive Advisor to investment firm LRVHealth, and a Fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

He holds a PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University, and an AB in political science from Vassar College. Prior to receiving his PhD, he was a Presidential Management Fellow and a senior operations research analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in Washington, DC, for which he received the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Medal.

Mr. Clifford Wilborn, Joint Sharing Sites—FHCC Director, FEHRM

As Joint Sharing Sites—FHCC Director, Mr. Clifford Wilborn supports DOD and VA joint sharing sites and the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center (FHCC) EHR implementation efforts. He oversees the FEHRM Joint Sharing Sites—FHCC Workstream’s identification and mitigation of issues associated with asynchronous EHR deployments at VA/DOD joint sharing sites. He also advances the FEHRM’s primary mission and role as the single point of accountability in the delivery of a single, common federal EHR system to FHCC. Mr. Wilborn serves as Principal Lead for FHCC EHR implementation activities for a multi-agency team orchestrated by the FEHRM in collaboration with DHMSM and the VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office.