Speakers

Alaina R. Clark is the Assistant Director for Stakeholder Engagement at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). As Assistant Director, she leads CISA’s efforts to promote and deliver strategically aligned stakeholder engagements, helping achieve a secure and resilient infrastructure for the American people.

Ms. Clark most recently served as Deputy Chief of CISA’s Office of External Affairs where she oversaw the Agency’s public messaging, legislative agenda, and branding. She was responsible for digital messaging, including the Agency’s social media, web pages and graphic design.

Prior to her work at CISA, Ms. Clark served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Intergovernmental Affairs (IGA) from 2013 to 2019. In this position, she managed the day-to-day operations of the IGA State, Local, and Tribal teams.

Her accomplishments included consolidating five offices, two advisory councils and two awareness campaigns into the new Office of Partnership and Engagement (OPE) in 2015, reporting to the Secretary of Homeland Security, and taking on additional responsibilities in January 2016 as acting Assistant Secretary for OPE. In this OPE position, Ms. Clark oversaw office operations for IGA, Office for State and Local Law Enforcement, Private Sector Office, Office of Academic Engagement, Committee Management Office, Homeland Security Advisory Council and Homeland Security Academic Advisory Council, as well as the national awareness campaigns “If You See Something, Say Something®” and the Blue Campaign.

Also while serving as IGA Deputy Assistant Secretary, Ms. Clark oversaw the Department’s participation in the Council of Governors. This bipartisan group of 10 governors was appointed by the President to work with DHS, Department of Defense and the White House. She also led DHS efforts in support of the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico.

Ms. Clark’s work with IGA began in 2007. She served in numerous IGA positions, including State Coordinator to Director for State Affairs, from 2007 to 2013. While working for the Department’s Counterterrorism Coordinator, Ms. Clark oversaw outreach with state and local officials and religious community leaders regarding ongoing threats and their impact.

Before joining DHS, Ms. Clark worked for a consulting firm that supported the DHS Science and Technology Directorate and the DHS Office of the Under Secretary for Management.

Ms. Clark holds a bachelor’s degree in international studies from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and a master’s degree in government with a concentration in homeland security from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Marisol Cruz Cain is a Director in GAO’s Information and Cybersecurity team. She oversees work on federal cybersecurity and privacy issues, including specific agencies’ ability to protect privacy, sensitive data, and the computing infrastructure. In addition, she is a Diversity Champion participating in efforts to increase diversity at GAO and facilitating multiple Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion courses in the Learning Center. 

Marisol joined GAO in 2005. She has led audits on government-wide cybersecurity, privacy, and information management issues, including reviews of the efficiency of federal privacy programs, the implementation of cybersecurity risk management practices, and the transition to electronic records. She has also led reviews of cybersecurity and IT management/operations at specific agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and Federal Student Aid. 

Marisol earned a master’s degree in public administration from University at Albany. Marisol has earned a master’s degree in information security from University of Maryland Global Campus. Marisol earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 

Steven Hernandez is an information assurance expert serving the past twenty years in a variety of contexts and missions. He has worked on the front lines in operations centers and led research teams attempting to balance security, privacy, and mission delivery considerations. Transforming risk management in international manufacturing, healthcare, non-profits, and governments at the federal, state, and local levels is extensive through his professional portfolio. Leading tactical, day-to-day security operations as well as guiding and influencing broad security initiatives such as the US government's FedRAMP program across large organizations with international presence are areas he’s frequently called upon to support. Presently he is the Chief Information Security Officer and Director of Information Assurance Services at the U.S. Department of Education. Steven also serves as the co-chair of the US Government Federal CISO Council and government chair of the ACT-IAC Cybersecurity Community of Interest. Prior to his position at Education, he held a variety of roles at the Office of Inspector General, US Department of Education including CTO, CIO, CISO, Senior Official for Privacy and Chief Services Engineering Officer. He is an inaugural member of the United States Scholarship of Service Hall of Fame. He served on the Board of Directors for the International Information Systems Security Consortium (ISC) 2 , served on the U.S. (ISC) 2 Government Advisory Board for Cybersecurity (GAB), judged for the Government Information Security Leadership Awards
(GISLA) and contributed to its Executive Writers Bureau. Mr. Hernandez is the lead author and
editor of the third edition of the (ISC)² Official Guide to the CISSP CBK, the (ISC)² Official
Guide to the HCISPP CBK, and several published works regarding international information
assurance.

Shawn Devroude is the Deputy Assistant Director (DAD) for the Cyber Capabilities Branch within the FBI’s Cyber Division. In this role, he has oversight of the division's Cyber Readiness Section and the Cyber Technical Analytics and Operations Section. He leads coordination and deployment of Cyber Division’s technical tools and capabilities, and he oversees all cyber‐related training, recruiting, hiring, and finances for the division.

DAD Devroude joined the FBI in 2002 working international terrorism investigations in the Washington Field Office. Since 2010, Shawn has worked multiple leadership roles in the Counterterrorism Division, Philadelphia Field Office, Baltimore Field Office, and Counterintelligence Division.

DAD Devroude has a B.A. in Pre‐Law from the University of Delaware, an MBA in International Business & Finance from Drexel University, and a J.D. from Widener University School of Law.  Before joining the FBI, Shawn was a Delaware state criminal trial prosecutor.

Jeff Reichard is Vice President, Solution Strategy in the Office of the CTO at Veeam. Jeff drives
strategic product and go-to-market engagement with public sector and enterprise customers,
with a particular focus on risk and compliance. Jeff has 25 years of experience in data
protection/availability, business continuity, and regulatory compliance solutions. His previous
roles have ranged from designing SAN and data backup solutions to systems engineering and
engineering leadership serving public sector and enterprise customers. Prior to Veeam, Jeff
most recently led Commvault’s federal civilian SE team. At Veeam, Jeff works with partners,
customers, and industry analysts to evangelize Veeam's vision for modern data protection at key events worldwide.

Troy K. Schneider is GovExec's General Manager for Government Technology Brands, and for many years has been the Editor-in-Chief of both FCW and GCN, two of the oldest and most influential publications in public-sector IT. Both publications (originally known as Federal Computer Week and Government Computer News, respectively) were acquired by GovExec in 2021.

Prior to that acquisition, Mr. Schneider was General Manager of Public Sector 360, the government-focused business unit of 1105 Media. Prior to joining 1105 Media, Mr. Schneider was the New America Foundation’s Director of Media & Technology, and before that was Managing Director for Electronic Publishing at the Atlantic Media Company, where he oversaw the online operations of The Atlantic Monthly, National Journal,The Hotline and The Almanac of American Politics, among other publications. The founding editor of NationalJournal.com, Mr. Schneider also helped launch the political site PoliticsNow.com in the mid-1990s, and worked on the earliest online efforts of the Los Angeles Times and Newsday. He began his career in print journalism, and has written for a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, WashingtonPost.com, Slate, Politico, Governing, and many of the other titles listed above.

Mr. Schneider is a graduate of Indiana University, where his emphases were journalism, business and religious studies. 

Chris Usserman is the Director of Security Architecture and a subject matter expert with Infoblox. Chris has over 32 years’ experience in the U.S. Intelligence Community to helping clients understand and incorporate cyber business intelligence to improve cyber security programs. With a focus on the U.S. Government and public sector, Chris brings a public/private perspective to enhance the security posture of multiple sectors and communities of interest. Chris regularly speaks at domestic and international conferences on building more effective and mature cyber security programs. Prior to Infoblox, Chris served in several leadership roles, including Senior Director, Applied Intelligence and Director, Government Programs at iSIGHT Partners (FireEye). Chris was also a Lead Research Scientist (Cyber Ops) at Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Laboratories, and served 14 years in the U.S. Air Force. 

Ms. Sudha Vyas assumed the position of Chief Cybersecurity Architect, Department of Defense Chief Information Officer for Cybersecurity in December 2020 where she is responsible for the Department’s Cybersecurity Reference Architecture and strengthening the collaboration and partnership across the Government and Industry. Prior to her current position, Ms. Vyas assumed the dual position as the Naval Information Warfare Command (NAVWAR) Acting Assistant Chief Engineer for Mission Architecture and the Assistant Chief Engineer for Mission Assurance and Certification from January to December 2020. During this timeframe, Ms. Vyas also continued her role as the Director for NAVWAR Cybersecurity Division where she led cyber related efforts from cybersecurity transformational initiatives to include leveraging model based systems engineering to conduct cyber risk assessments, instituting cyber data analytics, standards in direct support of the Navy Information Technology and Cybersecurity Technical Authority to ensure warfighting mission success in a cyber-contested environment. Ms. Vyas also led the cyber risk and resiliency initiative for the DON CISO under the DON CIO’s Information Superiority Vision. Prior these assignments, Ms. Vyas was the Deputy Division Director and the NAVWAR Cybersecurity Safety (CYBERSAFE) Program Director from May 2015 to September 2017. In this position, Ms. Vyas led and managed the execution the NAVWAR CYBERSAFE program to provide maximum reasonable assurance of survivability and resilience of mission critical information technology in a cyber-contested environment in order to maintain mission capabilities. Ms. Vyas was also responsible for leading Navy’s first cross-SYSCOM Cyber Platform Risk Assessment.

Prior to NAVWAR, Ms. Vyas assumed the position of the Director, Standards and Assessments, Joint Tactical Networking Center (JTNC) in July 2014. In this position, Ms. Vyas led and managed the DoD Waveform Standards and Software Communications Architecture, Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program, and Technical Compliance and Certification Assessments of DoD Waveform Information Repository products. Ms. Vyas also served as the Technical Director and the Technology Protection Officer for JTNC.

Ms. Vyas also served various technical positions within the Joint Program Executive Office (JPEO) for the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) as the Assistant Executive Director of Enterprise Issue Resolution, Program Protection Officer, and Information Assurance Manager for the Network Enterprise Domain (NED) JTRS.

Before serving with the Department of the Navy, Ms. Vyas served in various technical and leadership positions within industry. While at Systems Research Applications, International she was the Access Control Lead for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation responsible for ensuring the integrity and availability of over 7,000 institutions. During her assignment with Signals Solutions, Inc., she was Lead Analyst for Commander Operational Test and Evaluation Force responsible for planning, coordinating, and directing U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Forces Korea in joint and coalition information assurance and interoperability exercises. While working for Raytheon Network Centric Systems she led the information technology managed services for the Transportation Security Agency’s (TSA) security team in implementing an incident response team and reporting and notification process. Additionally, Ms. Vyas served as Security Operations Center (SOC) manager providing strategic vision and leadership for the revolutionary $6.8B Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) program designed to consolidate all Naval network and information assurance operations management at three central network secure operations facilities.

Ms. Vyas was born in Bethesda, Maryland. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from The Catholic University of America and holds her Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) Program Management Level III certification and Engineering Level III certification.

Alex Whitworth is an IT executive with more than 13 years of experience in all aspects of public sector sales, marketing and channel development. As Director at Carahsoft Technology Corp., he manages several sales teams, providing leadership and insight into the Public Sector IT marketplace. His teams play a major role in supporting the government’s evolving cybersecurity demands, with a deep focus towards supporting agencies with successful zero trust adoption. In addition, he leads Carahsoft Technology Corp.’s corporate strategic efforts in helping organizations meet compliance with the DoD’s CMMC initiative.