John Higbee serves as Defense Acquisition University’s director of mission assistance and director of knowledge repository.

As director of DAU mission assistance, he leads the establishment and improvement of multiple university-wide processes for mission assistance and also the improvement in communication and coordination between the DAU business units providing mission assistance.

As director of DAU knowledge repository, Higbee is responsible for DAU’s online knowledge assets including the defense acquisition portal and the acquisition community connection.

Prior to his current roles, he was director of the acquisition program management division for the Department of Homeland Security.

Before joining DHS, Higbee served as director of DAU executive programs and dean of Defense Systems Management College.

After his retirement from the U.S. Navy in 2002, he assumed duties as an executive-in-residence and professor of program management at DAU.

A nuclear submariner, Captain Higbee served on seven attack and ballistic missile submarines, culminating in command of USS Von Steuben from 1990 to 1993.

Following his at-sea command, he was assigned to various roles including: as combat system design manager, Virginia-class submarine program; deputy program manager, submarine regional warfare program; program manager, Navy undersea weapons program; acting deputy assistant secretary of the Navy; and as military deputy to the DASN.

Higbee holds a master’s degree in engineering from The Catholic University of America and a bachelor’s degree, majoring in physics, from the U.S. Naval Academy. He is also a graduate of the DAU advanced and executive program management courses, the Cornell University executive development program, and the Federal Executive Institute.

Michele Flournoy is the co-founder and CEO of the nonpartisan think tank Center for a New American Security, which offers ideas for national security policies.

Flournoy served as defense undersecretary for policy from February 2009 to February 2012, where she worked with the defense secretary on security and defense policy, oversight of military plans and operations and in National Security Council deliberations.

Prior to her confirmation for the role, Flournoy co-led President Barack Obama’s transition team at the Pentagon.

Her public service career also includes stints as principal deputy assistant defense secretary for strategy and threat reduction, as well as deputy assistant defense secretary for strategy.

Flournoy also has served as a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and as a distinguished research professor at the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies.

She is a member of the Defense Policy Board, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group, as well as a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

She also serves on the boards of MITRE Corp., Rolls Royce North America, Amida Technology Solutions and The Mission Continues, as well as a senior adviser at the Boston Consulting Group.

Flournoy holds a bachelor’s degree in social studies from Harvard University and a master’s degree in international relations from Balliol College, Oxford University, where she was a Newton-Tatum scholar.

Joe Demarest serves as assistant director of the cyber division at the FBI, where the 26-year bureau veteran has worked in investigative matters related to counterterrorism, white-collar crime, organized crime, drugs, violent crime and foreign counterintelligence.

Prior to his current role, Demarest led the FBI’s international operations division and was responsible for the bureau’s international and overseas law enforcement operations, liaison, and training efforts.

He started his FBI career as a special agent in the Anchorage division, transferred to the New York division in 1999, was later promoted to squad supervisor in the division and was selected as the division’s SWAT team leader.

In 2000, Demarest was selected to serve as the drug branch’s acting assistant special agent in charge and served as a shift commander for the bureau’s investigation into the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In 2002, he was selected to lead a team of FBI personnel deployed to the joint task force at the U.S. naval station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. and was then promoted to a unit chief position at FBI headquarters in 2002, where he served in the international terrorism operations section within the counterterrorism division.

He was promoted to assistant section chief of the section in 2003 and he later served as an acting section chief in ITOS until he was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of the New York division’s international terrorism branch.

Demarest was later selected as the special agent in charge for counterterrorism and served in that role until early 2008.

In December 2008, he returned to the FBI after a stint in the private sector and was appointed assistant director in charge of the New York division.

His private sector career includes time as managing director for the Americas with Goldman Sachs in that firm’s global security office.

Prior to the FBI, Demarest served as a deputy sheriff in Hillsborough County, Florida for five years.

Steve Shirley serves as executive director of the Defense Department‘s Defense Cyber Crime Center in Linthicum, Maryland, which is a national cybersecurity center that incorporates five organizations.

DC3 comprises of the Defense Computer Forensics Laboratory, Defense Cyber Investigations Training Academy, Defense Cyber Crime Institute, DC3 Analytical Group and the Defense Industrial Base Collaborative Information Sharing Environment.

Prior to his current position, he served as vice commander of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

The Pentagon says Shirley has also participated in discussions with security officials of defense contractors that later led to a decision by the deputy secretary in 2007 to create a public-private sector sharing model to exchange cyber threat data.

He retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 2004 and was appointed to the Senior Executive Service.

Shirley’s military career included service as commander of counterintelligence, antiterrorism and investigative operations at many levels in the Air Force.

He was also a counterintelligence support officer to a unified command and also serve in the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s staff, where he developed positions to protect the military’s  sensitive programs during arms control treaty inspections.

Shirley holds a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University, master’s degree from Arizona State University and is also a graduate of the Squadron Officer School, the Air Command and Staff College, the Armed Forces Staff College and the Air War College.

Ann Barron-DiCamillo serves as manager and chief of operations for the United States-Computer Emergency Readiness Team within the Department of Homeland Security.

In this role, she leads DHS’ efforts to help build up the country’s cybersecurity posture, coordinate cyber information sharing and manage cyber risks.

Barron-DiCamillo’s first role at DHS was at the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center and she previously worked for four years at the Defense Information Systems Agency prior to DHS.

Her federal government experience also includes time as a supervisory IT specialist and branch chief with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and as a legislative aide to then-Rep. Tom Coburn.

Barron-DiCamillo is a recipient of the Commerce Department‘s Bronze Medal Award for Superior Federal Service.

She holds a master’s degree in information systems from American University and a bachelor’s degree from Baylor University.

Kevin Meiners serves as assistant national intelligence director for acquisition, technology and facilities at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

In this role, he is responsible to the DNI for all matters related to acquisition, research & technology and facilities for the national intelligence program.

Meiners started his career with the U.S. Navy in 1984 as an entry-level electronics engineer and worked at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command.

In 1988, he moved into program management at the Naval Air Systems Command and served as the first program manager for the U.S. Navy’s P-3 special projects program.

Meiners joined the Pentagon in 1994 as a member of the newly-formed Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office, where he held roles such as director of the advanced technology programs, director of plans and programs and acting deputy director.

In 1998, he transitioned to the office of the assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications and intelligence became director of intelligence strategies, assessments & technologies.

Prior to ODNI, Meiners served as assistant deputy defense undersecretary for portfolio, programs and resources.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech and a master’s degree in management information systems from Marymount University.

Meiners is also a graduate of the program managers course from the Defense Systems Management College and holds a master’s degree in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces

Steve Cooper serves as the chief information officer at the U.S. Department of Commerce.

He leads the development and implementation of the Department’s enterprise-wide IT strategy and operations, oversees the building and operation of the enterprise IT security risk program and serves as an adviser on mission and business IT systems and services.

Prior to joining Commerce, Cooper served the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as acting deputy assistant administrator for information services and CIO. Previously, he was IT director and CIO of FAA’s air traffic organization.

Earlier in his career, President George W. Bush appointed him as the first CIO of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and prior to that, as special assistant to the President for homeland security and senior director for information integration in the White House Office of Homeland Security.

In between his service at DHS and the FAA, Cooper served as senior vice president of IT and CIO of the American Red Cross, where he led the introduction and use of a national call center to provide emergency financial assistance during Hurricane Katrina.

Cooper also has more than 20 years of private sector experience, including as partner and founding member of Strativest, LLC, CIO of corporate staffs at Corning, Inc., IT director at Eli Lilly and Company, among others.

Cooper was named one of the Top 100 CIO’s in America by CIO Insight in 2007, a recipient of the Fed 100 Award and was named by the Washington Post as one of the Five to Watch while serving in the White House.

A graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, Cooper was honorably discharged as a U.S. Naval Air Reserve petty officer in 1984.

Taha Kass-Hout serves as chief health informatics officer at the Food and Drug Administration and is the first person to hold that title in the agency’s history.

He leads the development and implementation of information systems that support the missions of the directorates, centers, physicians and scientists at the FDA and acts as a subject matter expert on scientific computing and data systems.

Additionally, Kass-Hout serves as the chair of the scientific and research domain steering committee across the Department of Health and Human Services, which credits him for launching the first HHS program hosted completely in the Internet cloud.

Prior to his role as CHIO, he served at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2009 to 2013 in roles such as co-chair of CDC’s information resources governance council and director for the division of informatics solutions and operations.

In 2012, Kass-Hout co-chaired the Office of Science and Technology Policy‘s biosurveillance sub-committee, which handled work in “detecting disease and threat aberrations from the norm.”

During the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009-2010, Kass-Hout led CDC’s quick scale-up of monitoring hospital emergency department visits in coordination with state and local public health agencies in order to cover more than 90 percent of the U.S. population.

Kass-Hout holds a Doctor of Medicine and a Master of Science in Biostatistics from the University of Texas’ Health Science Center at Houston.

He also had clinical training at Harvard’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Major General John Peabody is the deputy commanding general for civil and emergency operations of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

He exercises oversight of the Corps’ civil works activities, which includes conducting research and development, as well as planning, designing, building, operating and maintaining the nation’s water resource civil infrastructure.

Maj. Gen. Peabody is also responsible in coordinating all emergency response missions and preparatory activities for civil disasters in support of the FEMA and the state & local authorities.

Prior to this role, he was the commander of the Mississippi Valley Division and president of the Mississippi River Commission.

Maj. Gen. Peabody’s awards and decorations include the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal with “V” device, Purple Heart, Joint Meritorious and Army Meritorious Service Medals, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, among others.

A northern Ohio native, he entered military service in 1980 upon commissioning as a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, spending most of his career as a combat engineer.

Maj. Gen. Peabody is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College with a master’s degree in strategic studies. He also received an M.P.A. from Harvard University and studied as an Olmsted Scholar at El Colegio de Mexico, Mexico City.

U.S. Navy Admiral Michael Rogers serves as commander of U.S. Cyber Command, director of the National Security Agency and chief of the Central Security Service.

Prior to these roles, he served as commander of both the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command and the U.S. Tenth Fleet, with responsibility for all of the Navy’s cyberwarfare efforts.

During the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Rogers joined the military’s Joint Staff, which works for the Joints Chief of Staff, where he specialized in computer network attacks.

Originally a Surface Warrior Officer, he was selected for re-designation to cryptology (now Information Warfare) in 1986. He has led cryptologic direct support missions aboard U.S. submarines and surface units in the Arabian Gulf and Mediterranean.

Rogers is a distinguished graduate of the National War College and a graduate of highest distinction from the U.S. Naval War College.

A native of Chicago, he received his commission through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) program and has served in the U.S. Navy since graduating from Auburn University in 1981.