DAF Data, Analytics, and AI Forum

Brigadier General Atwood is the Deputy Commander, Space Operations Command, U.S. Space Force, Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. As Deputy Commander, he is responsible for the generation, presentation and sustainment of U.S. Space Force combat-ready space, cyberspace, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and combat support forces. Moreover, as the USSF service force provider, he is responsible to the Secretary of the Air Force and Chief of Space Operations for sourcing, training, certifying and assessing the readiness of America’s Space Forces to execute service and combatant commander-assigned missions.

General Atwood entered the Air Force in May 2001, after graduating summa cum laude from The Citadel. A career intelligence officer, he supported fighter aircraft operations and served as an instructor at the USAF Weapons School. He served as squadron commander of National Signals Intelligence and Overhead Persistent Infrared Activities for Space Operations and was the inaugural Delta 7 commander, establishing ISR operations for USSF. General Atwood has deployed in support of Operations Southern Watch, Northern Watch, Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

Prior to assuming his current position, Brigadier General Atwood was dual-hatted as the Vice Commander and Deputy Commanding General, Operations, Space Operations Command, headquartered at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado.

Ms. Susan K. Davenport, a member of the Senior Executive Service, currently servesas the Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer within the Office of the Chief Information Officer, comprised of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force. Ms. Davenport develops and implements strategies for enterprise data management, analytics, digital transformation, and responsible/ethical artificial intelligence to optimize performance and drive innovation in and across the Department of the Air Force.

Ms. Davenport has more than 35 years of experience in intelligence, acquisitions, cyberoperations, and advanced space technologies, primarily supporting the Air Force, and National Reconnaissance Office. Prior to her current position, Ms. Davenport served as the Senior Advisor for Defense Innovation in the Concepts, Development and Management Office, where she was responsible for creating and implementing innovative capabilities, identifying optimized strategies, and determining operational efficacy to meet cyberspace, and information and applied technology requirements for intelligence activities and operations.

Ms. Davenport spent 16 years at the National Reconnaissance Office in various positions. Highlights include Deputy, Office of the Chief Engineer, Systems Engineering Directorate, where she led end to end closure, risk, readiness, schedule, and requirement activities for the NRO enterprise. Director, Advanced Systems and Technology Directorate, Research Ground Group, where she led an organization focused on leveraging Small Sat ground systems, Artificial Intelligence capabilities, andresidual space assets to deliver new disruptive technologies that advanced ground and space layer capabilities for the NRO, DoD, and IC. Director, Customer Group, Communications Directorate where she managed the onboarding activities, budget, recap, and operations and maintenance of a billion-dollar FYDP portfolio including the National Reconnaissance Commercial Cloud Services (C2S), the Agency Unique on premise infrastructure, and management of the NRO’s data centers. Ms. Davenport was Director for two mission centers in Ground Enterprise Directorate and was a key contributor in the stand-up of the NRO’s Future Ground Architecture.

Ms. Davenport led a successful military career, joining the active-duty Air Force in 1989 as a Signals Intelligence Collector, commissioning as a Communication and Information Officer, and retiring in 2013.

Mr. Graham Evans, Booz Allen Senior Vice President, brings digital and analytics capabilities to Booz Allen clients, with more than a decade of experience supporting the Department of Defense (DOD) and other U.S. federal agencies. His background includes working to advance enterprise architecture, agile software development, DevOps, and data science. In leading the delivery of analytic domains, Graham's breadth of expertise spans health, military readiness, finance, and logistics.

In his current role, Graham leads Booz Allen's work supporting data platforms and enterprise analytics within the DOD's highest decision-making bodies. He established the firm’s relationship with numerous cutting-edge commercial data services, setting the strategy and bilateral engagement to bring next-generation capabilities to the federal government.

Beyond his work to drive data transformation for clients, Graham is also the technical lead for investments in modern data platforms, data engineering, data cataloging, and the development of an integrated data experience. This effort seeks to seamlessly link tools and discoverable data to accelerate the return on investment of analytics projects for public sector clients. Graham studied engineering in both undergraduate and graduate programs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Venice Goodwine, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Chief Information Officer for the Department of the Air Force, comprised of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force. Ms. Goodwine leads three directorates–Enterprise Information Technology, Data and Artificial Intelligence, and Cybersecurity–and supports 20,000 cyber operations and support personnel around the globe with a portfolio valued at $17 billion. She provides oversight of the Air Force's Information Technology investment strategy from networks to cloud computing, Enterprise policies, data management, digital transformation, information resources management, information technology innovation initiatives, information assurance and related matters for the Department of the Air Force. As Chief Information Officer (CIO), Ms. Goodwine delivers cybersecurity and enforces Freedom of Information Act, Privacy Act laws and the ethical use of AI in the Department. She integrates warfighting and mission support capabilities by networking and securing air, space and terrestrial assets. Ms. Goodwine also leads career management initiatives for 10,000 IT/Cyber civilian personnel across all human resources facets from recruiting to professional development.

She has more than 30 years of information technology experience spanning private industry, active and reserve military service, and the federal civilian government. Her experience includes leading large IT organizations, developing agency-wide strategy and policy, establishing governance, overseeing cybersecurity operations, executing IT acquisition, and program management.

Immediately prior to this role, Ms. Goodwine served as the Director of Enterprise Information Technology within the Office of the Chief Information Officer for the Department of the Air Force. She also previously served as the Chief Information Security Officer for the United States Department of Agriculture, a cabinet-level agency. As the USDA CISO she oversaw $208 million incybersecurity expenditures throughout the agency each year. She raised the agency’s FITARA cyber score from an F to a B, and led the agency to achieve a single unified security operations center by consolidating 128 federal and contractor FTEs, 57processes, and 11 tools, valued at more than $8.2 million. She led the integration of Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigationtools across more than 134,000 endpoints and 1,200 mobile devices.

Ms. Goodwine also had an extensive military career, joining the active duty Air Force in 1986 as a Signals Intelligence Analystand transitioning to the Air Force Reserve where she received her commission in 2003 as a Communication and Information Officer, completing assignments at various levels including squadron, group, wing, joint, and combined, ultimately retiring from uniformed military service in 2022.

Goodwine was named a 2020 Washington Exec Top 25 Cybersecurity Executives to Watch and won both the 2020 Washington Exec Pinnacle Award for Cybersecurity Government Executive of the Year and the 2020 G2Xchange Women in Leadership awards. She also was nominated for the 2020 Fed Scoop 50 Cybersecurity Leader of the Year award.

Kian Katanforoosh is the CEO and founder of Workera, the #1 trusted skills technology across the Fortune 1000. Workera offers unparalleled insights into workforce capabilities to help organizations accurately assess employees’ proficiency in high-demand skills and efficiently increase those skills.

In addition to his work leading Workera, Kian is also an award-winning lecturer at Stanford University, where he co-created their Deep Learning program alongside AI legend Andrew Ng and has helped teach AI to over 4 million people. Kian has been acknowledged for his teaching excellence by Stanford with the Walter J. Gores Award, Stanford’s highest teaching award, and the Centennial Award for Excellence in teaching.

Thomas A. Lockhart, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Director of the Capability and Resource Integration Directorate (J8), United States Space Command, Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. He is responsible for establishing the command's requirements and advocating for the assigned missions of deterring aggression and conflict, protecting and defending U.S. interests in the space domain, delivering space combat power for joint and combined forces, and developing ready and lethal joint warfighters.

Prior to his current assignment, Mr. Lockhart was the Director of Engineering and Technical Management, Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, Hill Air Force Base, Utah. Mr. Lockhart has also worked at the Air Force Research Laboratory as the Director for both its Plans and Programs Directorate and its Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation Directorate.

Mr. Lockhart has had two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. In his last tour as the NATO Resolute Support Essential Function for Sustainment, Kabul, Afghanistan, he exercised oversight of Afghanistan National Defense and Security Forces sustainment for 385,000 Ministry of Defense and Interior military and police forces yearly budgets of over $3.2 billion.

Mr. Lockhart began his career in 1987 working as a Journeyman Engineer in training and simulation at Hill AFB, Utah. He has served as an Engineer, Chief Engineer, Acquisition Program Manager, Group Director, combatant command Financial Manager, Deputy Program Executive Officer and Security Cooperation Director.

Rory Patterson serves at the Chief Of Staff to Ali Ghodsi, the CEO of Databricks. In this role, he is the highest ranking leader in the Public Sector solutions organization, and is the primary advocate for all National Security Solutions across Databricks. Rory has worked at Databricks across the executive leadership team for more than 4 years.

Prior to this engagement, Rory spent almost 5 years in the C Suite at Splunk, where he helped build this company into one of the largest and mot important cyber security data and analytics companies in the world. Rory started his career in the intelligence community, where he served for almost ten years, in a variety of data science, analysis, and leadership roles across organizations in Military Intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Cyber Defense Agency. Rory is one of the most respected subject matter experts in the use of data analytics and AI/ML to support National Security, and is routinely called to brief DOD/IC senior leadership as well as members of Congress and the Executive Branch.

Rowayne A. “Wayne” Schatz, Jr., a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Director for Studies & Analysis, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, the Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia. He is responsible to the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force for leading, carrying out, reviewing and ensuring the analytic integrity of studies and analyses. He develops Air Force-wide policy, guidance, and analyses that inform Air Force leadership decisions concerning current and future warfighting capabilities.

Prior to his current position, Mr. Schatz was the Associate Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Arlington, Va. In this capacity, he was responsible to the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Air Force for formulating policy supporting air, space, cyberspace, irregular warfare, counter-proliferation, homeland security and weather operations to achieve national security objectives. He also served as the Executive Director of the Department of Defense Policy Board on Federal Aviation.

Mr. Schatz retired from active duty on September 20, 2016, at the rank of major general, U.S. Air Force. He entered civil service in October 2016 and assumed his present position in May 2021. He received his commission from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1983 and commanded at the squadron, group and wing levels. Mr. Schatz has held staff positions at Air Mobility Command, U.S. Transportation Command, the Joint Staff, Air Force Headquarters, U.S. Special Operations Command and 5th Air Force. He deployed in support of operations Southern Watch, Joint Guard, Allied Force, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.