my Ritualo is currently the Deputy Chief Data and AI Officer and Statistical Official of the Department of State. Prior to joining the Department of State and Center for Analytics, Ms. Ritualo served as the Deputy Chief of the Office of Performance and Quality at the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). In this capacity, Ms. Ritualo managed several enterprise-wide portfolios, including forecasting and staffing allocation models used to inform the agency’s resource allocations and fee rule, and the agency’s internal and external data and statistical reporting on immigration benefits. She earned a DHS Secretary’s Award for her role in promoting transparency and open data through the launch of the H-1B Employer’s Data Hub. Ms. Ritualo began her USCIS career in 2016 in the Office of Policy and Strategy as the acting division chief of the Research and Evaluation Division. In this capacity, she managed several research and evaluation programs and partnerships. 

Prior to joining USCIS, Ms. Ritualo managed numerous research and evaluation projects of multimillion-dollar school feeding, agricultural development, and trade programs in the Foreign Agricultural Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She also managed research and evaluation projects to advance the evidence base and development of statistical methodologies for measuring child labor and force labor in the Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor and Human Trafficking at the U.S. Department of Labor. In this capacity, Ms. Ritualo served as the lead U.S. delegate and drafting committee member of the first statistical resolution on child labor at the International Conference of Labor Statisticians. She also earned a DOL Secretary’s Exceptional Achievement Award for her contribution to eliminate the worst forms of child labor in cocoa producing areas in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana.  Amy lived and worked in Geneva, Switzerland while serving as a researcher at the United Nations International Labor Organization.  

Ms. Ritualo has a graduate degree in Demography from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology from Western Washington University. She lives in Rockville, Maryland with her husband and two children, a senior at Walter Johnson High School and junior at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

Shane is the Senior AI Strategist for NVIDIA’s Public Sector team focused on Generative AI and Robotics & Autonomy.  Shane is responsible for developing and executing strategic activities, partnerships, and initiatives to accelerate and enhance NVIDIA’s impact across the Federal Government.   

Prior to NVIDIA, Shane led National Security & Defense research at Carnegie Mellon University and was Adjunct Faculty in the Robotics Institute from 2016-2023. Prior to Carnegie Mellon, Shane worked at the Air Force Research Laboratory and various technology companies across the Defense Industrial Base between 2000 – 2016, with a focus on strategic planning, innovation, and emerging technologies.  Shane also served in the United States Air Force for 10 years in various operational assignments across Air Force Special Operations Command and Air Combat Command, and research assignments at AFRL and DARPA.  Shane has also served as a volunteer Wish Granter for the Makle-A-Wish Foundation for over 30 years.

Heather Kuldell-Ware is a freelance editor and writer who has covered government technology and cybersecurity for the last 15 years. Her work has appeared in Nextgov, C4ISRNET, Federal Times, GCN and other government-focused publications. When she’s not thinking about cloud computing or AI advancements, she is playing with consumer gadgets for Popular Science and AP Buyline.