As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, MeriTalk is taking a moment to celebrate the government and industry leaders driving real impact across federal IT.
MeriTalk is delighted to announce the winners of the America 250 Powering Progress Awards. There are two categories for the awards, so we’re honoring both our 5th Annual Cyber Defenders and our 3rd Annual AI Innovators.
The award winners are government and industry leaders who are making a difference in the federal IT community – advancing AI, strengthening cybersecurity, and accelerating progress in automation, cloud, and customer experience.
We plan to celebrate the winners of the America 250 Powering Progress Awards at a special edition of Tech Tonic on May 21 at Morton’s The Steakhouse in Washington, D.C., from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Join us as we raise a glass to the Cyber Defenders and AI Innovators.
Here are your 2026 winners:
AI Innovators, government:
- Larry Allen, Associate Administrator for Governmentwide Policy and Chief Acquisition Officer, General Services Administration
- Doug Freeman, Acting Responsible AI Official, Department of Commerce
- Travis Hoppe, Chief AI Officer, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Mangala Kuppa, Chief Information Officer, Department of Labor
- Hai Ah Nam, HPC Technology Department Head and NERSC Deputy Division Director, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Brian Peltier, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Social Security Administration
- Revolution Crossroads Team, Smithsonian and Library of Congress
- Nael Samha, Executive Director, Targeting and Analysis Program Directorate, Customs and Border Protection Office of Information Technology
AI Innovators, industry:
- Guy Cavallo, Chief Innovation Officer, Planet Technologies
- Brandy Durham, Chief Data and AI Officer, MANTECH
- Kathleen Featheringham, Senior Vice President, AI, Maximus
- Christian Hoff, Managing Director and General Manager, Global Civilian Government, Amazon Web Services
- Austin Keller, Director of Data Science, IntelliDyne, LLC
- Nikhil Krishnan, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Data Science, C3 AI
- Vimesh Patel, Chief Technology Advisor, Federal, World Wide Technology
- Dan Tadross, Head of Public Sector, Scale AI
- Bryan Thomas, Vice President, U.S. Public Sector, Everpure
Cyber Defenders, government:
- Christopher Green, Information System Security Manager, Citizenship and Immigration Services
- Matt House, Acting Deputy Associate Director and Program Manager, Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Program, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
- Steven McAndrews, Deputy Director of Threat Analysis and Incident Response, Department of Energy, Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response
- Seth McKinnis, Deputy Assistant Director, Critical Infrastructure, Office of the National Cyber Director, The White House
- Austin Pearson, Acting IT Senior Technical Advisor, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Information Technology, Enterprise Command Operations
- Michael Post, Chief Information Security Officer, Small Business Administration
- Rosa Underwood, IT Specialist, Federal Acquisition Service, General Services Administration
Cyber Defenders, industry:
- Curtis Arnold, Chief Scientist, Cyber, Core4ce
- Gary Barlet, Public Sector Chief Technology Officer, Illumio
- Hemant Baidwan, Chief Information Security Officer, Knox Systems
- Felipe Fernandez, Chief Technology Officer, Fortinet Federal, Inc.
- Phil Fuster, Vice President, Government Markets, SpyCloud, Inc.
- Anand Janjal, Senior Project Manager, REI Systems
- Robert Makheja, President and Chief Executive Officer, MFGS, Inc.
- Anish Patel, Head of Federal, Cloudflare
- Egon Rinderer, Senior Vice President, Global Public Sector and Enterprise Strategy, NinjaOne
- Shawn Shortridge, Director, Data Sovereignty Solution Program Manager, CGI Federal
- Ashique Tanveer, Health Director, REI Systems
- Chris Townsend, Global Vice President, Public Sector, Elastic
- Daniel Wilbricht, President, Optiv and ClearShark
- Joseph Wingo, Director of DOD Business Strategy, Armis
Congratulations to all of the winners. For more information on the awards, please visit https://www.meritalk.com/award/america-250-powering-progress-awards/.