Jean Bartik Computing Symposium
Distinguished Speakers
Keynote: Jeanné Woodfin, Founder and CEO, XenaTech Software Integration Services, LLC
Jeanné Woodfin is the founder and CEO of XenaTech Software Integration Services, LLC, in Cedar Crest, NM, that offers transit passenger information systems and cutting-edge fleet management solutions to cities, counties, and businesses throughout the United States. Prior to founding XenaTech, Jeanné was a senior manager at Los Alamos Technical Associates, in charge of Intelligent Transportation solutions for both rail and rubber-wheeled fleets. Jeanné honed her management skills in the United States Marine Corps where she served for eight and a half years, flying combat missions in support of Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina. She has the distinction of being the first female Marine Naval Flight Officer and the first woman to fly in combat for the United States Marine Corps. She is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy with a degree in Computer Science and has a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix. She is married to a Southwest Airlines’ pilot and is the mother of two teenagers.
Fireside chat: Colonel Ahmed T. "Will" Williamson, USMC, Military Assistant to the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps
Colonel Williamson is currently assigned as the Military Assistant to the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps. He recently completed an assignment as the Commanding Officer of the Marine Corps Officer Candidates School (OCS) in Quantico, Virginia, where he was responsible for leading the team that screens, evaluates and develops the next generation of Marine Corps officers.
Colonel Williamson is originally from Upper Marlboro, Maryland. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) in Annapolis, Maryland; upon graduating in 1994, he earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science. Colonel Williamson has completed 25 years of active duty service in the Marine Corps, comprised of operational experience as well as joint and interagency experience. During those years, he has performed duties in several different capacities and traveled throughout the world, participating in combat operations, contingency missions, and myriad training exercises. As a Communications and Information Systems Officer, Colonel Williamson was responsible for designing, supervising the installation, and ensuring the reliable operation, maintenance and defense of complex communications networks in tactical and garrison settings in support of Marine and Joint forces.
Colonel Williamson is a Distinguished Graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School, having earned a Masters Degree in Management in 2000. In 2002, Colonel Williamson attended the Expeditionary Warfare School in Quantico. Upon graduation, Colonel Williamson was honored as a Distinguished Graduate and selected to receive the Colonel Donald C. Cook Award for excellence in the Command, Control and Communications field. In 2009, Colonel Williamson attended the Marine Corps Command & Staff College, earning a Masters of Military Studies Degree and achieving honors as a Distinguished Graduate. Additionally in 2013, Colonel Williamson served as a Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellow to Microsoft, where he observed best practices and emerging technologies in the areas of Information Technology, cyberspace/cybersecurity operations, and CIO policies and governance procedures. Furthermore, Colonel Williamson was awarded the Federal Forum 2015 Breaking the Status Quo Award for recognition as a Federal leader who has developed and operationalized innovative strategies with Information and Cyber technologies.
Workshop Presenters
Captain Taylor Paul, United States Marine Corps
Captain Taylor Paul graduated from United States Naval Academy in 2011 with a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering. As an 0602 Communications Officer in the Marine Corps he enjoys designing, implementing and maintaining expeditionary computer networks. This led to his pursuit of a M.S. in Computer Science from the Naval Postgraduate School. He is now a Master Instructor in the Department of Computer Science at the Naval Academy. His research interests include computer vision with machine learning and his master's thesis focused on object detection in images for DoD specific tasks using deep convolutional neural networks and Google's TensorFlow.
ENS Kristina Bodeman, United States Navy
Ensign Kristina Bodeman first pursued a degree in Digital Arts and Animation before enlisting in the Navy in March of 2014. Upon graduating Boot Camp and being honored with the Military Excellence Award, ENS Bodeman was sent to the Navy Nuclear Pipeline as an Electronics Technician. After completing Nuclear A-School and Power School as the number one graduate, ENS Bodeman received her assignment to attend the United Stated Naval Academy as a Midshipmen.
ENS Bodeman majored in Computer Science at the Academy and participated in the Cyber Security Team, Filipino-American Club, and Women in Cyber and Computing Club. During her 4 years as a member on the Cyber Security Team, she assisted the team in securing 2 victories at the NSA’s annual Cyber Defense Exercise. ENS Bodeman did extensive research with the Furious MAC research team which presented at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium in 2019 for their submission
“Handoff All Your Privacy: A Review of Apple’s Bluetooth Low Energy Continuity Protocol”. ENS Bodeman also served as the 1 st Battalion Drill Officer and 1 st Regiment Drill Officer while at the Academy.
ENS Bodeman graduated from the Naval Academy in May 2019 with a standing in the top 10% of the graduating class while also being honored with the Admiral Sims Memorial Award for top graduating Computer Science Major. ENS Bodeman was designated as a Cryptologic Warfare Officer and currently works at the Navy Information Operations Center Georgia.
Dr. Kaitlin Fair, Air Force Research Lab
Dr. Kaitlin Fair is the Integrated Sensor and Navigation Services Team Lead for the Integrated Seekers and Processing Branch at the Air Force Research Laboratory Munitions Directorate. Her team is working to develop full service seekers for weapons systems that exploit information throughout the entire duration of flight. Dr. Fair served as a Research Engineer at AFRL for six years prior to taking on her current leadership role, during which she received the SMART Scholarship and completed her PhD in Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2017. Her research interests include efficient signal processing, algorithm development on brain-inspired (neuromorphic) engineering architectures, and explainable artificial intelligence.
Dr. Summer Rankin, Booz Allen Hamilton
Dr. Summer Rankin is currently a lead data scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton. She works on projects that involve a range of techniques including: deep learning, NLP, anomaly detection, edge computing and time-series analysis. She is the technical lead on Project Shakespeare with the FDA where she is using machine learning and NLP techniques to identify indicators for adverse events based on free text from electronic health records. She has recently received a DC FemTech Award for Code and is an
active member of Women in Data Science. She has a history of teaching many subjects from computer science to music and currently teaches online data science courses for Metis Data Science Bootcamp. She holds a PhD in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Charles Limb, MD at Johns Hopkins where she studied musical
creativity, auditory perception (fMRI) and human coordination with 1/f-type (fractal) auditory signals.
Kate Dowdy, Booz Allen Hamilton
Kate Dowdy is a data scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she has contributed to projects involving natural language processing (NLP), deep learning, anomaly detection, data mining, visualizations, and service architecture/ data engineering. Her current work includes developing solutions to aid surveillance of the opioid epidemic and detect adverse events in electronic health records for the Food & Drug Administration. She received a BA in Economics from the College of
William & Mary and completed General Assembly’s Data Science Immersive Program in 2019. Prior to Booz Allen, she spent over five years in program management, monitoring & evaluation for an education nonprofit and growth accelerator for women-led tech and healthcare startups.
Dr. Lori Sussman, University of Southern Maine
Lori Sussman, Ed.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Technology at the University of Southern Maine. She graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1983 as a Signal Officer. Her service included command at all levels to culminating as Commander of the 15th Regimental Signal Brigade and elite assignments such as Presidential Communications Officer and Staff Assistant to the Chief of the Staff of the Army, among other jobs. Dr. Sussman retired as a US Army Colonel in 2007 and spent time in large corporations, small businesses, and as an entrepreneur. She has experience working in high technology companies such as Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). In these roles, she managed highly complex, diverse, and active organizations engaged in developing, acquiring, integrating, deploying, and sustaining state-of-the-art business and technology systems for clients. Her research areas include cybersecurity, gender equity, and leadership.
Katie Thompson, Capital One
Katie Thompson is a software engineering manager at Capital One, leading one of the Android app teams. She graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 2013 with a BS in Materials Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. During her first year at Capital One as an analyst, she found her true passion and community with her software engineering colleagues. She learned Objective-C, transitioned roles and then joined the iOS mobile team on the same day that Swift was announced by Apple. Several months later, she moved to the Android team, helping build the team from a few developers to over 20 teams. She also helped found the Women in Tech organization within Capital One in 2014. Katie is the proud spouse of a Marine fighter pilot, working remotely while moving to a new town almost every year. She enjoys playing trains with her toddler, throwing the ball for her dog and creating new recipes.
Frank Wakeham, Booz Allen Hamilton
Frank Wakeham leads Booz Allen’s Navy headquarters business segment, providing domain and functional support to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, the Secretary of the Navy, Naval Education and Training Command, and the Bureau of Naval Personnel/Navy Personnel Command. Frank previously led Booz Allen’s Navy fleet business segment, providing support to U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, Type Commanders, Navy Warfare Development Command, and Navy Reserve Force. Frank is also a leader in the firm’s strategic investment initiatives, focusing on next-generation training and augmented, mixed, and virtual reality solutions to increase mission readiness in the areas of training, planning/rehearsal, maintenance, and operations. Frank holds a B.S. in Economics from USNA (‘91) and an M.B.A. from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC - Chapel Hill. Frank served for 10 years as an active duty Surface Warfare Officer (nuclear) before joining Booz Allen Hamilton.
Autumn Sand, Booz Allen Hamilton
Autumn Sand is a Principal/Director within the Navy and Marine Corps Account in Booz Allen Hamilton. She is responsible for leading Booz Allen’s support to the Navy Operational Fleet across Norfolk, San Diego, Hawaii and other geographies worldwide. She is also a leader in Booz Allen’s Digital Solutions capability, where she leads a complex portfolio of work focused on designing and developing Digital and Analytics Decision Support Solutions for the DoD in the Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force and Joint Staff. She is a recognized expert in strategic, operational and tactical mission readiness. She is approaching her 15 year anniversary at Booz Allen. Prior to Booz Allen, Autumn served in the Navy following her graduation from the US. Naval Academy in 1999. Autumn’s education includes a B.S. in Systems Engineering and a M.E. in Engineering Management from Old Dominion University.
