Developer Relations Engineer, Google

IT Architect, Ohio Department of Youth Services

Ben Arp is an IT Architect with the Ohio Department of Youth Services. A Columbus native, Ben brings over 15 years of Enterprise IT experience across both the public and private sectors, including roles with the Ohio Department of Administrative Services and JP Morgan Chase. He specializes in networks, solution design, and implementation.

Executive AI Solutions Officer, Dell Technologies

Technology has never been just about infrastructure; it has always been about unlocking human potential.
Jessica Audette’s career has been defined by the intersection of strategy, innovation and enterprise technology. At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, she served as Head of Research Technology Management, where she led the strategy and deployment of a world-class AI and HPC environment, including the launch of an IO500-ranked supercomputer that accelerated breakthrough cancer research and empowered scientists to tackle some of healthcare’s most complex challenges. Today, Jessica is an Executive AI Solutions Officer at Dell Technologies, where she partners with healthcare systems and higher education institutions to turn AI ambition into measurable outcomes. She helps organizations identify practical, scalable AI use cases that deliver tangible return on investment; improving patient care, accelerating research, modernizing operations and preparing the next generation of AI-enabled institutions.
Her expertise extends beyond supercomputing, AI, cloud technologies and agile leadership. She is a Certified Chief of Staff and SAFe Scrum Master, with additional credentials in AI Automation Essentials, AWS and Digital Leadership. She has also pioneered initiatives such as an infrastructure grant program to bridge research funding gaps, specialized HPC training programs for the MSK research community and process improvements that create more scalable and efficient research environments.
Deeply committed to professional development, inclusion and mentorship, Jessica has long invested in the next generation of technology leaders. She has served as Engagement Chair for Women in Leadership at Vanguard, advised the MSK DigITs internship program and continues that commitment as a Strategic AI Advisor for Harrisburg University Science & Technology, helping connect academic learning with real-world industry experience.
With more than a decade of experience in strategic leadership, artificial intelligence, business process management and operational excellence, Jessica has held key roles at Vanguard, Goldman Sachs Ayco and Morgan Stanley. She holds degrees from SUNY Cortland, Cornell University and Oxford’s Saïd Business School and is currently pursuing her MBA at Purdue University.

Executive Director of Purdue Online Academics and Strategic Initiatives, Purdue University

Dr. Carrie Berger serves as Executive Director of Academic Affairs and Strategic Initiatives at Purdue University Online, where she leads pan-university program development and aligns academic and industry partnerships to advance workforce-focused education at scale. She led the development of Purdue’s interdisciplinary online Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence, recently shortlisted for a QS Reimagine Education Award for innovation, and has built a comprehensive AI portfolio spanning graduate degrees and noncredit offerings.

Under her leadership, Purdue’s AI microcredentials were designed to provide just-in-time, workforce-aligned learning for working professionals. The portfolio spans foundational technical topics such as machine learning principles, data pipelines, and model evaluation; applied domains including generative AI and real-world implementation strategies; and non-technical content focused on governance, ethics, policy, and organizational AI adoption. These noncredit, asynchronous offerings were the first university-delivered noncredit credentials to receive QA certification from ABET. 

In addition to program development, Carrie convenes cross-sector leaders to shape the future of AI in education and workforce development, including spearheading the inaugural Purdue/Google AI Summit, which brought together business, government, and academic leaders to address AI’s transformative impact on learning and work. With a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry and more than 20 years of leadership experience in research administration and academic operations, she has guided interdisciplinary growth initiatives, enterprise-level grant development, and institutional transformation.

Vice President, Life Sciences, Schrödinger

Sathesh Bhat, Ph.D. serves as Vice President of Life Sciences at Schrödinger, overseeing the de novo design and retrosynthesis software product lines as well as the application of computational chemistry technologies across internal and partnered therapeutics programs. Since first joining Schrödinger in 2011, he has driven the development and deployment of large-scale molecular design workflows and automation. He previously held computational chemistry leadership roles at Merck and Eli Lilly. Sathesh holds a Ph.D. from McGill University, where he developed structure-based methodologies for predicting binding free energies. He has also co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and patents in computational chemistry and small molecule drug discovery.

Indiana State Senator, Indiana Legislature

State Sen. Liz Brown has served Hoosiers since 2014 as a member of the Indiana Senate. She represents Senate District 15, which includes portions of Allen County. Brown serves as member of the Senate Committees on Appropriations, Corrections and Criminal Law, Ethics, Health and Provider Services and Judiciary. She is also a member of the Senate School Funding Subcommittee and advisory member to the Distressed Unit Appeals Board. In 2023, Brown was named the Midwest Region Champion of Innovation due to her work on cybersecurity and data privacy issues.

Outside of the General Assembly, Brown is the legislative representative on the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership’s Regional Opportunities Council and has served on the Indiana
School for the Blind and Visually Impaired Board since 2016. Brown holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Notre Dame and a Juris Doctor from the University of Iowa.
Brown and her husband, Steve, reside in Fort Wayne. They are the proud parents of seven children and have five grandchildren, two cats named Walker and Texas Ranger, and one dog named Corby.

Professor of Civil Engineering
Director of the Joint Transportation Research Program, Purdue University

Darcy Bullock is the Lyles Family Professor of Civil and Construction Engineering at Purdue University and serves as the director of the Joint Transportation Research Program (JTRP).  Bullock is a Registered Professional Engineer in Indiana and has over 35 years of experience working closely with academia, transportation agencies, and private sector partners in the area of transportation systems and big data analytics.  

Cloud AI Customer Engineer, Google Public Sector

Gabby Burke serves on Google Public Sector’s Rapid Innovation Team, leading technical initiatives with state and local governments and higher educational institutions across the US. She is passionate about leveraging technology to create more effective, equitable, responsive, and proactive public systems. In her role, Gabby partners directly with public sector agencies nationwide, empowering them to harness cloud solutions, data-driven strategies, and generative AI to overcome critical challenges.

Previously, Gabby managed statewide public health and interoperability initiatives, including Colorado’s Social Health Information Exchange program (the first of its kind in the nation). She has also directly served clients experiencing homelessness. She holds a Master of Public Affairs from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A/AI Research Engineer Principal, Advanced Technology Center, Lockheed Martin Space

Chief Operating Officer, Ascend Indiana

Betsy Davis is Chief Operating Officer at Ascend Indiana, where she leads organizational operations and helps advance strategies that strengthen Indiana’s workforce and talent development ecosystem. Davis brings more than 15 years of experience developing workforce, education, and career-connected learning initiatives, with a focus on connecting employers, education, and community partners. Prior to joining Ascend, Davis spent more than a decade at EmployIndy, where she held progressively senior leadership roles across recruitment and talent solutions, employer engagement, career-connected learning, and career pathways. She began her tenure by launching and leading EmployIndy’s recruitment services before moving into broader talent and workforce strategy. She later founded Talent Bound, a regional career-connected learning intermediary initiative, and helped pioneer the Modern Apprenticeship Program, creating youth apprenticeship pathways across multiple industries. Davis holds a bachelor’s degree in international studies and foreign language from the University of Southern Indiana.

Applications Manager, Ohio Department of Youth Services

Shawn Davis is the Applications Manager at the Ohio Department of Youth Services. Prior to working for DYS, Shawn worked in various IT Roles at the Ohio Department of Administrative Services and JP Morgan Chase. Shawn is a graduate of The Ohio State University who currently lives in the Columbus, OH area.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Arcamed

With nearly 30 years of manufacturing experience, the CEO of Arcamed has built the company on a foundation of hard-won knowledge and a deep commitment to customer satisfaction. His journey began in a family landscaping business, where his father taught him a fundamental truth: taking care of employees leads directly to a better experience for the customer. This principle has remained a guiding force throughout his career. The company was created to be a true partner to orthopedic companies and aligned with Jon’s two key principles: “Success is only limited by desire” and “Hope is not a strategy.” At Arcamed, this translates into a relentless, focused approach to delivering world-class quality and service. He used his knowledge to build strong, process-driven teams, and to foster a culture of employee care that ensures customer satisfaction is consistently exceeded.

Field CTO for Education at Google Public Sector
Head of Industry at Google Cloud, Google

Chief Information & Innovation Officer, Indiana Secretary of State

Robert Fulk is Chief Information and Innovation Officer for the Indiana Secretary of State, where he leads enterprise technology, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cloud modernization, data strategy, and digital transformation across statewide services supporting millions of citizens and businesses.

Fulk brings nearly three decades of executive and technology leadership spanning global industry, high-tech organizations, and federal and state government. His career includes transformative work with multinational organizations including Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Dow, 3M, Chrysler, Johnson Controls, and ThyssenKrupp, along with federal government initiatives involving the U.S. Senate and national-scale public-sector programs.

Throughout his career, Fulk has focused on translating emerging technology into measurable organizational outcomes—modernizing complex environments, redesigning business processes, strengthening cybersecurity, improving customer experience, and delivering significant operational efficiencies and return on investment.

At the Indiana Secretary of State, he is leading an enterprise AI strategy designed to move artificial intelligence beyond experimentation into secure, governed, production-scale capabilities. His organization is deploying generative and agentic AI across citizen services, business operations, professional licensing and education, financial literacy, historical records research, and workforce productivity.

Among these initiatives is Captain Record, an AI-powered platform using Google Cloud, Vertex AI, Gemini, advanced OCR, handwriting recognition, and retrieval-augmented generation to make more than 20 million pages and over a century of government records searchable and accessible. His organization is also applying AI to notary education and licensing, intelligent virtual agents, business services, financial education, and government operational workflows.

Fulk has made responsible AI a foundational component of that transformation, advancing governance, human oversight, cybersecurity, transparency, accessibility, and risk management aligned with frameworks including the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. His approach emphasizes that successful AI adoption requires more than technology—it requires modern infrastructure, trusted data, redesigned processes, workforce readiness, governance, and measurable business outcomes.

His work has received national recognition for AI and government innovation. Fulk was named to Constellation Research’s AI150, recognizing leading executives globally driving transformative applications of artificial intelligence, and was selected as one of Government Technology’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers. Programs developed under his leadership have also earned national and state recognition for artificial intelligence, digital government, citizen experience, and public-sector innovation.

A frequent speaker on artificial intelligence, agentic AI, responsible AI, cybersecurity, cloud modernization, digital transformation, and the future of government, Fulk brings a perspective shaped by leading change across multinational corporations, high-tech environments, and complex federal and state government organizations.

His leadership philosophy is centered on a straightforward principle: innovation should not be measured by the technology deployed, but by the problems solved, trust created, experiences improved, and measurable outcomes delivered.

Senior Director – Lead, Frontier AI, Eli Lilly

Industry Executive, Education and Research, Google Public Sector

Jesus is an Industry Executive for Education and Research at Google Public Sector. He is one of the founding members of the Google Cloud for Higher Education team. In his +10 years of tenure at Google, Jesus has led the definition and launch of strategic programs and solutions that bring the best of Alphabet to top academic research institutions.

Jesus’ experience spans engineering, operations, strategy and business development. During this time, Jesus has led initiatives in regulated industries that currently support hundreds of millions of daily users.

President, MSP Manufacturing

Johnny Goode is President and Owner of MSP Manufacturing (MSP Aviation, Inc.), a family-owned, AS9100D-certified, ITAR-registered precision manufacturer located in Bloomington, Indiana, founded in 1943. MSP is a direct U.S. Navy prime and holds FAA design authority on flight hardware found on nearly every commercial aircraft in service. Under Johnny’s leadership, MSP has doubled its workforce, tripled revenue, and added three automation cells. The company is now bringing AI-assisted CAM programming and 5-axis pallet automation onto the shop floor. In 2026, MSP won TechPoint’s Mira Award for Manufacturing Innovation.

Johnny took an unconventional path into manufacturing. He served eight years in the Army National Guard as a reconnaissance squad leader while concurrently servicing twelve years as a police officer, including as a narcotics detective and SWAT operator. He still serves as a range instructor at the police academy. He holds a degree in Entrepreneurship from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

Director, Institute for Physical AI
Samuel D. Conte Professor, Computer Science, Purdue University

Director for State Engagement, Center for Democracy and Technology

Dr. Travis Hall is the State Director for CDT, where he helps to champion, coordinate, and strategize CDT’s policy initiatives at the state level.

Prior to joining CDT, Dr. Hall served as the Associate Administrator for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s Office of Policy Analysis and Development. In this role, he oversaw NTIA’s policy development on issues including Artificial Intelligence, privacy, cybersecurity, intellectual property, national security, and telecommunications. Prior to this position, Dr. Hall served as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Assistant Secretary and acting Deputy Associate Administrator for the Office of Policy Analysis and Development at NTIA.

Before joining the Department of Commerce in 2015, Travis taught at American University and was a research fellow at the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society in Berlin, Germany. He received his PhD in Media, Culture, and Communications from New York University, and his MA in International Communications and BA in International Relations from American University.

Chief Information Officer, Ohio Department of Youth Services

Brian Hernandez serves as the Chief Information Officer and Deputy Director for the Bureau of Information Technology Services at the Ohio Department of Youth Services. With more than 20 years of IT experience, Brian has worked with senior staff and C-suite executives in a variety of roles at major organizations, including Comcast, Time Warner, JP Morgan, and IBM across several regions (Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and the Southeast). Brian has a wealth of experience in customer service, contact centers, infrastructure, and application management software across various operating platforms.

Brian has worked with STEM programs and high schools in the Columbus area to showcase technology jobs and inspire young minds. While working with the Ohio Department of Administrative Services, Brian started a state technology-based user group conference that allowed all agencies to collaborate on technology. 

Senior Vice President Go To Market, iQor

Colson Hillier is Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations at iQor, where he leads Product and Go To Market across the company’s CXBPO™, Growth as a Service, and infinityAiQ pillars. 

Colson is responsible for how iQor’s capabilities reach the market, working with clients on product:market fit by mapping client’s opportunities to the right combination of analytics, technology, and operational delivery.  He is focused on emerging market opportunities including iQor Grow, InsightsIQ and iQor’s Gaming practice. 

Hillier has a strong track record of developing and commercializing emerging technology to build profitable business operations on a global scale. Over his 30 year career he has built and led product and marketing teams in network services, mobile applications, advertising, mobile payments, augmented reality and enterprise software. In each of these initiatives, Hillier focuses on a strong understanding of the buyer, building product:market fit and developing innovative go to market strategies that create profitable value for stakeholders. His experience includes developing and leading teams from 5 to 500 in the development of new product lines that have grown to billion dollar business and helped define today’s technology landscape across broadband & mobile networks, software & applications, digital advertising & commerce.

Colson joined iQor to help transform the industry by leveraging AI and analytics to re-think customer service. Before joining iQor, Hillier was Chief Marketing Officer at Alorica, where he led global marketing, communications and sales enablement. 

Hillier is a thought leader on the gap between traditional CX metrics and new ways to measure customer engagement. Focused on using technology to unlock and activate on feedback from customer in real time to shift contact centers from cost centers to profit centers. 

He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance and marketing from the University of Richmond and a Master of Business Administration from the College of William and Mary. He resides in New Jersey with his wife and 2 sons and when not working, you will find him on the lake or in the mountains with his chocolate lab, Mousse.

Connect with Colson Hillier on LinkedIn. 

Researcher, Computer Architecture, Google

Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University

Co-founder, E-gineering, Inc.

Troy is a co-founder of E-gineering and serves on its leadership team and board. He graduated from Purdue with a degree in Computer Engineering in 1998. Always an engineer at heart, Troy leaned into generative AI in fall 2024 with the goal of augmenting E-g staff skills, building intelligent applications, and helping clients adopt the technology. He credits the intelligent, high-character people around him and seeks to align everything he does with the company values of People, Excellence, and Integrity.

Head of Education and Workforce, Grow with Google

Caroline Levens has worked at Google for 11 years, where she currently serves as Head of Education & Workforce for the Grow with Google team, which is Google’s $1 billion commitment to economic opportunity. Since 2017, Grow with Google has helped over 13 million Americans grow their skills, careers, and businesses. Caroline works on the Google Career Certificates, which provide people access to in-demand, high paying jobs regardless of educational background or work experience. These certificates have provided significant upward mobility to 400k job seekers in the U.S. and counting.

One of her most significant contributions was co-leading the launch of the Google Cybersecurity Certificate and establishing partnerships across the ecosystem, spanning public sector, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and industry. She also led the launch of Grow with Google’s first AI course for teachers, Generative AI for Educators.

Caroline’s earlier career experience spans Strategy & Operations, Marketing, and Ads. She earned her MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology and a B.Sc. in Communications from the University of Miami. She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and is originally from St. Louis, Missouri.

Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Purdue University

Chief Digital and Information Officer, Vylor

Brian Lutz is the Chief Digital and Information Officer at Vylor.

Brian leads Vylor’s global digital, data, and technology strategy – spanning enterprise platforms, digital products, artificial intelligence, analytics, and cybersecurity – to accelerate innovation, drive growth and strengthen the company’s competitive position.

Brian is known for operating at the intersection of innovation, business strategy and impact. Previously, he held senior leadership roles at Vylor’s heritage company Corteva, where he integrated digital, data and AI capabilities across the R&D pipeline while contributing to enterprise strategy and long‑term value creation.

Raised on a fourth‑generation corn and soybean farm, Brian brings a unique blend of agricultural grounding, scientific depth and business leadership. He began his career in academia studying soil carbon and nutrient cycling, then transitioned into industry roles across digital technology, seeds and crop protection – focused on translating science and data into scalable solutions and growth opportunities. He has also worked extensively at the science‑policy interface, including providing congressional testimony and engaging with policymakers on agriculture, sustainability and innovation.

Brian holds a Ph.D. in biogeochemistry from Duke University, completed executive education and business management programs at Northwestern University, and earned his Bachelor of Science in biology from The College of Wooster.

Innovation Coordinator, Google for Education

Chris McCaffrey is a Google for Education Certified Trainer & Coach and the Coordinator of Innovation, while also managing the virtual academy at Wilson School District in PA. Drawing from over 27 years in education—including experience as a school board director, adjunct professor, professional learning coordinator and math & computer science educator—Chris brings a unique perspective to professional development. He has facilitated Google for Education and AI professional development initiatives for over 400 school districts and at several universities across the United States, and beyond. He is dedicated to empowering educators to use technology creatively and effectively to empower students to create their future. Chris thrives on building innovative capacity within organizations by creating growth opportunities for all educational professionals.

Director of Product Portfolio and INBiz, Indiana Secretary of State

Nate Odle is Director of Product Portfolio and INBiz for the Indiana Secretary of State, where he helps lead digital modernization, artificial intelligence, and product transformation initiatives across the organization. His work focuses on translating emerging technologies into secure, scalable solutions that improve government operations and constituent experiences. Nate has helped advance initiatives including the AI-powered Captain Record historical records platform, intelligent virtual agents, modernization of Indiana’s INBiz business-services platform, and the state’s innovative Notary Education Learning Management System. His leadership approach combines product strategy, cloud modernization, responsible AI, data, cybersecurity, and process redesign to move government beyond AI experimentation toward measurable operational impact. At the Purdue + Google AI Summit, Nate brings a practitioner’s perspective on how public-sector organizations can scale AI responsibly, modernize legacy services, and turn innovation into meaningful public value.

Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, US Department of Transportation

Seval Oz serves as the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology. In this role, she is charged with aligning the Department’s research, development, and technology programs with President Trump and Secretary Duffy’s strategic goals and promoting innovation deployment across the national transportation system.

Seval was the Senior Business Development and Global Partnerships Lead at Google [X]’s Self Driving Car Program that later evolved into Waymo, where she owned partnership portfolio programming. Subsequently, as CEO of Continental Intelligent Transportation Systems, she was responsible for building a new business unit for Continental AG based in Silicon Valley and spearheading advancements in connected vehicle technology and digital transformation. Seval also served as CEO of Aurima, leading the development of camera-radar hardware and machine learning for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving platforms.

Seval has held advisory and board positions in the mobility sector, including Member of the Board for Microvision, (MVIS- Nasdaq) a leader in automotive lidar technologies, and Executive Board Advisor for Pioneer Electronics, a next generation telematics and infotainment global supplier. She was a founding partner for Archimede Ventures, an early-stage artificial intelligence software fund focused on transportation technologies including global logistics, delivery, routing, ADAS, and robotics. Investments. As a Strategic Advisor for Moove.ai, she guided business and technical strategies for end-to- end-predictive road intelligence analytics.

Seval holds an MBA in finance and marketing from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Wellesley College and MIT. She has nine patents in vehicular technology software and has been published in MIT Technology Review. A well-known public speaker, she has shared her transportation technology expertise through numerous keynotes, panels, and roundtables at industry conferences, university lectures, technical workshops, and global tours.

Senior Research Engineer, NVIDIA

Dr. Yuxing Peng is a Senior Research Engineer at NVIDIA specializing in BioNeMo, a framework and ecosystem for AI modeling in life sciences. His work focuses on accelerating drug discovery by integrating generative AI, machine learning models, and molecular dynamics simulations. Previously, he served as a computational chemist and HPC architect at The University of Chicago, where he conducted the research on large-scale molecular dynamics simulations of charge transport processes in biology and materials science.

Commissioner, Indiana Department of Transportation

Lyndsay Quist was named Commissioner of the Indiana Department of Transportation in March 2025 by Governor Mike Braun.

Lyndsay brings extensive knowledge of the agency to her position of Commissioner, serving the agency since 2013. She first served as our LaPorte District’s Capital Program Manager. In 2018, she became INDOT’s Managing Director of Project Delivery and then in 2022 she was named Deputy Commissioner of Capital Program Management.

Silicon Valley Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University

Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University

Cyber Warfare Officer, U.S. Space Force
Founder, AMIRA, Women’s Hormonal Health Initiative

MD S. “Doc” Rana is a U.S. Space Force officer, senior Department of Defense civil servant (GS-14/15), technologist, entrepreneur, and Harvard Kennedy School MC/MPA candidate whose career spans artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, cyber warfare, space systems, software and systems engineering, national security, and human-AI teaming.

In uniform, Doc serves as a Cyber Warfare Operations Officer and has supported missions at the combatant-command level, including service at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), one of the United States’ geographic Combatant Commands (COCOMs). His experience includes defensive and offensive cyber operations, mission assurance, cyber planning, emerging technology integration, and the application of artificial intelligence to operational and national security problems. His work has taken him from strategic headquarters environments to operational teams responsible for translating policy, technology, and intelligence into mission outcomes.

At U.S. Space Systems Command, Doc directed the Human-AI Teaming Lab, where he led work focused on trusted human-machine collaboration, AI assurance, decision support, resilient autonomy, and the operational adoption of artificial intelligence. He also served in an acting capacity as Chief Data and AI Officer, helping advance AI governance, data strategy, responsible AI adoption, and the transition of emerging capabilities into operational use.

As a senior Department of Defense civilian, Doc has served across multiple technical disciplines. He has worked as a Computer Scientist, Computer Engineer, Cybersecurity Engineer, systems engineer, and technical leader supporting research, development, science and technology, and mission engineering activities across the Departments of the Army and Navy. His prior federal civilian roles include service as a Computer Scientist with the Department of the Navy and a Computer Engineer with the Department of the Army. He has also supported Army Futures Command and broader defense research and technology efforts involving artificial intelligence, cyber, software, systems integration, and emerging threats.

Today, he serves as a senior civil servant with Transformation and Training Command headquarters in Austin, Texas, where his work includes cybersecurity, systems engineering, information assurance, modernization, AI integration, and emerging technology. Across his government career, he has worked at the intersection of operators, engineers, scientists, acquisition professionals, policymakers, and senior military leaders, giving him a perspective that spans both the technical and strategic dimensions of national security innovation.

Before entering the defense and technology community, Doc began his professional career in the maritime domain. He attended the Bangladesh Marine Academy and served as a Merchant Marine Officer for NYK Line of Japan, gaining early experience in engineering, operations, navigation, logistics, and complex systems in demanding real-world environments. That maritime background continues to shape his approach to mission assurance, reliability, resilience, and leadership under operational constraints. He traveled six continents on board five different ships. Doc also worked for Fortune top 10 companies as software engineering professional.

Doc’s academic background spans computer science, computer engineering, engineering, cybersecurity, and technical management, supported by multiple undergraduate and graduate degrees. He is also a Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act Level III Engineering practitioner, reflecting extensive experience in engineering, acquisition, systems development, and technology transition.

At Harvard Kennedy School, Doc is pursuing the Mid-Career Master in Public Administration as a member of the Class of 2027. He is an American Service Fellow and a Center for Public Leadership Fellow. His academic interests include artificial intelligence, geopolitics, national security strategy, technology policy, public leadership, defense innovation, and the changing relationship between emerging technology and state power.

Doc’s entrepreneurial work reflects a broader theme across his career: building AI systems that are useful, trustworthy, transparent, and grounded in evidence. He is also an avid hackathon enthusiast and led AMIRA to a first-place finish in the Women’s Hormonal Health challenge at the MIT Global AI Hackathon. The project was later selected for presentation at the MIT AI Conference 2026 in Silicon Valley, where he will showcase AMIRA to investors, technologists, and industry leaders. Doc has also spoken internationally on artificial intelligence, including at South by Southwest London 2026, where he contributed to discussions on AI, emerging technology, and their broader societal and strategic implications.

Across government, military service, academia, and entrepreneurship, Doc’s central focus is moving emerging technology from experimentation into trusted operational use. He is particularly interested in AI assurance, human-AI teaming, autonomous systems, cyber resilience, defense innovation, space systems, and the national security implications of advanced AI.

His career has been shaped by experience across maritime operations, Army and Navy technical organizations, combatant-command headquarters, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force, and advanced academic environments. That combination gives him a multidisciplinary perspective on one of the defining questions of the coming decade: how do we deploy increasingly capable AI systems in high-consequence environments while preserving trust, accountability, resilience, and human judgment?

Principal Scientist, Computational Chemistry, Evotec

Jacob Remington, Ph.D., is a Principal Scientist at Evotec, where he leads the development and application of advanced AI technologies for real-world pharmaceutical discovery programs. His work combines generative AI, multimodal transformer architectures, computational chemistry, and large-scale GPU computing to help identify and optimize novel therapeutics. Working at the interface of AI and medicinal chemistry, he focuses on translating cutting-edge machine learning methods into practical tools that address current drug discovery challenges and integrate seamlessly into scientific workflows. Over the course of his career, he has contributed to in silico and AI-enabled approaches spanning virtual screening, QSAR modeling, targeted protein degraders, antimicrobial peptide design, and molecular simulation. Dr. Remington earned his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Montana State University and has published in peer-reviewed journals on computational chemistry, machine learning, and drug discovery. He is particularly interested in bridging advances in AI with the expertise of medicinal chemists and drug discovery scientists to accelerate pharmaceutical R&D.

Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue

President, State AI Safety Roundtable

Trooper Sanders is president of the State AI Safety Roundtable, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to support and strengthen the role of states in advancing trustworthy AI and good governance. Trooper has spent nearly a decade working on AI including serving a term on the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee where he co-chaired the workforce and opportunity working group and leading efforts to use data and AI to improve access to public benefits. Trooper has served in White House policy roles in two administrations and grown a number of domestic and international social impact ventures. He is a member of Purdue University’s Military Family Research Institute advisory committee. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, London School of Economics, and the University of London. 

Associate Professor of Technology Policy and Co-Director of the Governance and Responsible AI Lab (GRAIL), Purdue University

Dr. Schiff is an Assistant Professor of Technology Policy at Purdue University’s Department of Political Science and the Co-Director of GRAIL, the Governance and Responsible AI Lab.

As a policy scientist with a background in philosophy, he studies the formal and informal governance of AI through policy and industry, as well as AI’s social and ethical implications in domains like education, manufacturing, finance, and criminal justice. His interdisciplinary and mixed methods research addresses topics such as industry standards and organizational practices for AI ethics, public and elite opinion and influence dynamics in the policy process, the development of social responsibility attitudes amongst future computing and engineering professionals, and the role of the public in governing emerging technologies.

At GRAIL, he focuses on fostering interdisciplinary research collaborations to study AI’s social, policy, and ethical implications using diverse theoretical approaches and rigorous methods. He works with many passionate and talented graduate and undergraduate students, academics, and practitioners.

His work also includes the development of interdisciplinary coursework focused on technology, policy, and ethics, and he maintains a key interest in engaging with members of the public, stakeholders in civil society and industry, and policymakers to share best practices, learn from others, and have applied impact that can benefit society. He aims to make his research accessible and relevant.

For example, Dr. Schiff served as the founding Responsible AI Lead at JP Morgan Chase & Co., the most Globally Systematic Important Bank (GSIB). He also served as Secretary of the IEEE 7010-2020 standard, the first AI ethics industry standard, focused on the impacts of AI on human well-being, and remains engaged in international, national, and subnational AI policy efforts. Before then, he worked for several years in the non-profit K-12 education sector as the Director of Research, Evaluation, and Planning at the Philadelphia Education Fund.

Dr. Schiff studied Philosophy at Princeton University, focusing on robotics and intelligent systems, before completing a Master’s in Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and PhD in Public Policy from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

You can see his work in venues across various disciplines, including Policy Studies Journal, Science and Public Policy, Public Administration, Technology in Society, Review of Policy Research, AI & Society, the International Journal of AI in Education, IEEE Transactions on Technology & Society, the Journal of Engineering Education, the AMA Journal of Medical Ethics, and Nanotechnology, and you can reach him at dschiff “at” purdue “dot” edu or at @dan_schiff.

Director of the Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory

Valerie Taylor is the Director of the Mathematics and Computer Science Division and a Distinguished Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory.  Her research is in high-performance computing, with a focus on performance analysis, modeling and tuning of parallel, scientific applications. Her current work is on energy efficient methods, microelectronics co-design, and the use of Large Language Models for the generation of performant parallel scientific software.  Prior to joining Argonne, she was the Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the College of Engineering and a Regents Professor and the Royce E. Wisenbaker Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. She is also the CEO and President of the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT).  Valerie Taylor is an IEEE Fellow, ACM Fellow, and AAAS Fellow.

Strategic Advisor: Federal Artificial Intelligence, World Wide Technology

Ramon M. Thomas is a seasoned IT professional with over two decades of experience, whose technology journey started with an internship at the Bettis Navy Nuclear Power Laboratory near Pittsburgh, PA, and who has been supporting public sector agencies ever since.

Throughout his career, Ramon has excelled in leading engineering teams at solution integrators and technology vendors, delivering impactful projects across both Commercial and Public Sector agencies. His expertise spans Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, Enterprise Networking, and Cybersecurity.

In his current role as an Advisor at World Wide Technology, Ramon spearheads strategic initiatives that empower organizations to achieve their missions. His contributions have been instrumental in supporting government agencies, earning him recognition for his exceptional service.

Ramon holds a Top-Secret clearance and several technical certifications, and he is actively pursuing a doctorate researching AI Adoption in Federal Agencies. Ramon’s recent achievements include recognition as an AFCEA International  40 Under 40 awardee, as well as authoring publications and insights on emerging technologies, such as his key takeaways from NVIDIA GTC DC 2025, which highlight the transition of AI technologies from experimentation to real-world applications. His dedication to innovation and excellence continues to drive success in his endeavors.

Senior Advisor – Corporate Strategy, Elanco Animal Health

Ashley Venenga serves as Senior Advisor, Corporate Strategy at Elanco Animal Health, bringing a proven track record of driving digital adoption, sales capacity optimization, and revenue growth across multi-billion-dollar portfolios. With deep expertise in advanced analytics and deployment modeling, Ashley has spearheaded the development and enterprise scaling of customer-facing AI resources in animal health. Her approach blends data-driven segmentation and AI innovation with disciplined change management across large-scale commercial organizations; ensuring that cutting-edge technology directly enables field teams, empowers livestock producers, and scales sustainable business outcomes.

Principal Research Scientist, IBM TJ Watson Research Center

Industry Business Development Manager, NVIDIA

Zihan Wang leads global business development in AgTech at NVIDIA. He started his career as an engineer at Argonne National Lab and was a management consultant at Ernst and Young.

Director, Data and AnalytiXIN

Derek Weinberg serves as the director of Data and AnalytiXIN for the CEOs of Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP). He is also currently an associate lecturer for Indiana University Kelley School of Business Evening MBA as well as president of Fox Theory Consulting, LLC. Prior to joining CICP, Weinberg worked for The Heritage Group as strategic business intelligence manager. He has also previously held roles at Indiana Department of Transportation, and as an adjunct professor at Indiana University Purdue University Columbus.

Weinberg earned a Master of Jurisprudence from Indiana University McKinney School of Law, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Indiana University Kelly School of Business, and Bachelor’s degree from University of Illinois. He is also a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business Leadership in AI & Analytics Program.

Head of Transportation Strategy and Partnerships, Google

Kristin White is a visionary leader serving as Transportation Industry Executive and Field Strategist for Google Public Sector, where she bridges the gap between Silicon Valley innovation and the public good. With a distinguished career that includes serving as the youngest-ever acting Federal Highway Administrator, COO of nonprofit ITS America, Minnesota DOT Innovation Director, an d other roles, she’s managed $300B+ investment portfolios and led major state and nonprofit initiatives.

A lawyer and former Fulbright Fellow, Kristin pairs deep policy expertise with a human-centered philosophy to tackle global mobility challenges like road safety and expanding mobility access. Beyond her professional achievements, she’s a dedicated mentor, “hum an sunshine”, women’s nonprofit founder, and a fierce advocate for advancing women in transportation.

Engineering Manager, Wear OS & Pixel Watch, Google

Brandon Wuest is an Engineering Lead at Google on the Wear OS and Pixel Watch team, where he heads Engineering Efficiency and serves as the Lead for his organization’s AI Champions Program. Based in Chicago, Brandon is helping guide a 600-person engineering organization through the practical and cultural shift toward AI-first software development. His work focuses on moving beyond early experimentation to integrate AI into everyday engineering workflows—helping teams navigate non-deterministic systems, balance development velocity with rigorous technical ownership, and establish new engineering best practices that maintain high software quality.

Over his nearly 14 years at Google, Brandon has led engineering teams across a wide range of consumer, hardware, and enterprise products, including Google Maps, Google Glass, AR/VR, Google Search, Google Cloud, and now Google’s smartwatch ecosystem. A proud Boilermaker, Brandon graduated from Purdue University in 2006 and is passionate about building high-performing engineering cultures that adapt thoughtfully to transformative technology shifts.