Raylene Yung, formerly executive director of the General Services Administration’s Technology Modernization Fund Program Management Office, has been appointed chief of staff at the Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations.

DOE said Tuesday Yung is among the six new appointees to its senior leadership team to support agency-wide efforts to achieve the Biden administration’s climate and energy goals.

Before joining DOE, Yung oversaw the $1.2 billion TMF initiative that supports the information technology modernization efforts across the federal government and served as co-founder and CEO of the U.S. Digital Response.

The Biden administration also appointed Rafael Cestero as special assistant for advance at the Office of Scheduling and Advance, Rebecca Kasper as chief of staff at the Loan Programs Office, Lila Nojima as attorney-adviser at the Office of the General Counsel, Andrea Piccardo as special assistant to the White House Liaison at the Office of the Secretary and Usha Sahay as chief speechwriter at the Office of Public Affairs.

Two current appointees received promotions: Julius Goldberg-Lewis was named chief of staff at the Office of Technology Transitions and Frances Swanson was assigned special adviser at the Office of the Under Secretary for Infrastructure.

The Senate on Tuesday voted 62-36 to confirm Monica Bertagnolli, head of the National Cancer Institute, as director of the National Institutes of Health.

In May, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Bertagnolli to serve as NIH director.

Xavier Becerra, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, welcomed the Senate confirmation of Bertagnolli, who will replace Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak.

Bertagnolli “has built a reputation for her willingness to take on the deadliest diseases facing patients and as a powerful advocate for cancer patients, working to end cancer as we know it. That same tireless energy and clear vision will serve her well as NIH director,” Becerra said in a statement.

Before becoming the 16th NCI director, Bertagnolli was a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

She is a former research fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who served as group chair of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology and led gastrointestinal science efforts within the Cooperative Groups Program, which is now called NCI’s National Clinical Trials Network.

Bertagnolli is a past president and board chairman of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The physician-scientist has also served on the boards of the American Cancer Society and the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

Discover and dialogue on the latest healthcare technology trends at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2023 Healthcare Summit on Dec. 6. Register here to attend this important event.

The U.S. Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office has made two major leadership changes.

These moves include the selection of Timothy Phillips as the office’s deputy director and the upcoming retirement of Sean Kirkpatrick, who serves as director of AARO, the DOD said on Wednesday.

Phillips has been a member of the Senior National Intelligence Service for nearly two decades and holds a strong track record of geospatial intelligence collection and mission management. His experience will support AARO efforts to identify, characterize and resolve unidentified anomalous phenomena.

Kirkpatrick shared his intent to step down from his current role in December in an interview with Politico published on Tuesday. The DOD officially confirmed his retirement in a statement by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks hours before Phillips’ appointment was announced.

Hicks, a three-time recipient of the Wash100 Award, noted Kirkpatrick’s “distinguished 27-year career of public services” within the DOD and Intelligence Community. During his time with AARO, she said, Kirkpatrick “served the American people with honesty and integrity, tackling an incredibly difficult mission to explain the unknown.”

One aspect of Kirkpatrick’s career that Hicks highlighted is his “commitment to transparency with the United States Congress and the American public on UAP.”

She cited his launch of the office’s public-facing website as an example and noted Kirkpatrick’s establishment of the office and its operations, assessment of hundreds of UAP cases and leadership in an exhaustive search for UAP-related government and contractor programs as other key contributions.

“Our department is stronger and better prepared for future scientific and national security challenges because of Sean’s distinguished service to our country,” she said.