Get to know the 2023 Rising Stars
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Connecting state and local government leaders
This year's class of Rising Stars has been selected both for their accomplishments over the past year and for their leadership potential.
A city wrestling with its own digital divide. An influx of migrants and asylum seekers overwhelming shelters and services. Backlogs and long processing times delaying critical benefits like food stamps and health care. The looming and constant threat of cyberattacks. The AI era. Training the not-so-tech savvy workforce.
These are some of the toughest, most entrenched problems in the country. And they’re precisely the situations that have been faced head-on by this year’s class of Rising Stars.
Six outstanding state and local leaders looked at the challenges in their communities and departments and took decisive action. Their collective efforts are a lesson in transformation. Today Boston has shrunk its digital divide by 16,000 households and counting. Thanks to New York City’s mastery of data, it has been able to quickly pivot to shelter and deploy resources for migrants. Minnesota’s Medicaid agency automated its review system, allowing hundreds of thousands of recipients to be automatically renewed without having to do anything and cutting the average case processing time from 70 minutes to 11. The Minnesota Department of Transportation is more resilient to cyber threats and data loss. Governments are being guided on how to use artificial intelligence to make their workforce more efficient. And St. Lucie County, Florida, is no longer spending weeks training employees on technology.
Their stories are inspiring. And their tireless dedication to public service is truly remarkable. It’s with great appreciation that we honor these men and women as 2023 Rising Stars.
The Rising Star Awards recognize individuals who are early in their public sector IT careers, but already are having an outsized impact. The men and women listed below have been selected both for their accomplishments over the past year and for their leadership potential in this community.
These awards are intended to identify and elevate the next generation of government tech talent at federal, state and local organizations as well as in the contracting sector. For the first time, Nextgov/FCW and Route Fifty teamed up to identify this year's class of Rising Stars.
As this year's list makes clear, there's tremendous talent coming up through the ranks. You can learn more about the six state and local 2023 Rising Stars, as well as the eight remarkable leaders making a difference at the federal level, via the links below.
2023 Rising Stars—State and Local
- Aurelle Amram, senior director of strategic partnerships for Code for America's Social Safety Net
- Josie Birch, disaster recovery program manager, Minnesota IT Services
- Santiago Garces, CIO, City of Boston
- Brock Lambert, senior manager, EY
- Chris Polack, strategic initiatives program manager, NYC Emergency Management
- Aaron Rice, security administrator- I.T., St. Lucie County Board of County Commissioners
2023 Rising Stars—Federal
- Malaika Carpenter, design supervisor for the United States Digital Corps, General Services Administratio
- Angelika Hall, security operations center manager and supervisory IT cybersecurity specialist, U.S. Office of Personnel Management
- Wendy Harman, senior director of CX strategy, ICF
- Zachary Nandapurkar, technical account manager, Public Sector, Tanium
- Shermaine Nedd, portfolio manager, Federal Acquisition Service, Office of Information Technology Category, Identity Credential and Access Management Division, General Services Administration
- Bridgette Savino, senior analyst, U.S. Government Accountability Office
- Ryan Sibbald, assistant special agent in charge, Special Operations Division, Drug Enforcement Administration
- Katrina Sizemore, director, Division of Program, Contract & Budget Management, Marketplace IT Group, Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
- Conrad Stosz, AI lead, Office of the Federal CIO, Office of Management and Budget