She has worked at the city, state, and federal levels developing, researching, interpreting, and implementing policy, including over five years at Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services (CMCS). As a Principal Policy Strategist at A1M Solutions, Rebecca combines subject matter expertise and strategy with human-centered design to develop user-centric products and services for CMCS. She is passionate about bringing together policy, technology, and user-centered design. 

Rebecca has a master’s degree in Political Management from The George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Boston University. 

Her work spans from helping the federal government design more equitable and human-centered services, to integrating participatory approaches into wildlife reintroduction projects, to creating design-based education curricula to engage students on ocean conservation.

As a Sr. Service Designer at XCell, she leverages tools and methods from human-centered design, participatory design, interaction design, and ethnographic research. Sara’s currently part of an enterprise design team within CMCS. She coaches product teams to apply HCD and service design methods to reduce burden on policy staff and she helps create standards, guidelines, and templates to keep growing CMCS’s HCD capabilities. She’s passionate about helping organizations design with people, not just for people. 

Originally, he was trained as a scientist and received his Ph.D. in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard University. Jarom’s unique insight and rigorous thinking led him to recently earn the Gold Stevie Award for Product Developer of the Year from the American Business Awards in 2022. At his core, he loves understanding a user's pain/job and creating solutions that people love to use.

She leads the design of consistent, connected, and sustainable care experiences delivered across the country with dignity. Ariele oversees the full scope of the CMS Experience portfolio, translating what the public and the agency’s workforce need, feel, and value into opportunities to co-create best-in-class products, services, programs, and policies. Prior to this role, Ariele was a Presidential Innovation Fellow at the General Services Administration (GSA) across two Administrations where she led federal-wide initiatives focused on Human-Centered IT Modernization, Digital Health, and Building a Future of Work through a Culture of Care. Earlier on, Ariele worked across startups, small businesses, non-profits, and corporations specializing in experience design for healthcare and life sciences.  

Ariele holds a Bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College, where she studied Neuroscience and Architecture; a Master of Science in Healthcare & Design from Imperial College London; and a certificate in Climate Change and Health from Yale School of Public Health. 

In her role, she's charged with growing Skylight's impact by managing project delivery and pursuing new partners as well as helping make Skylight's staff experience an exceptional one. Prior to working as a product manager and researcher in civic tech, Leslie spent a decade and a half working in and around our nation's public schools in philanthropy, as a teacher, non-profit leader and district administrator. She taught IDEO U's inaugural Service Design class as well as each of the foundations of design thinking it offers. Leslie's greatest service design challenge these days is creating a vibrant childhood for her two kiddos who she raises with her husband in Asheville, North Carolina.

Jessica engages with teams across the globe to share her expertise in scaling Agile practices and leadership coaching, as well as her passion for experiential learning and organizational transformation. Over the course of her career, Jessica has been responsible for advising and guiding the rollout of Agile Transformations at Fortune 100 and 500 companies. She is a certified professional coach through the Coaches Training Institute (CTI), as well as being a trained ORSC coach.

Dr T (Dr Tharaka Gunarathne), has appeared as resident Mind Expert on celebrity shows including Channel 4’s “Can I Improve My Memory” and the world-first hit show, “Scared of the Dark”. Having become a Medical Doctor around 20 years ago, and specializing as a Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr T now takes his insights on ‘Mindset and High Performance’ to audiences across the world, raising the roof at events with barrels of energy, joy and practical tools for transformation! As creator of the ‘Mind, Action, Profit’ Blueprint, Dr T helps audiences upgrade their thinking, motivation, wellbeing and RESULTS. He believes that when you “manage the mind, you can manage your bottom line! 

Currently, he lends his expertise to Softrams, where he has held the role of Senior UX Designer since July 2021. Throughout his tenure at Softrams, Robert has been unwavering in his pursuit of excellence in user experience design, with a special focus on advancing cognitive accessibility. Robert's journey in the field of Human Experience design has been defined by impactful contributions and a steadfast dedication to elevating user interactions. His professional journey has seen him collaborate with industry titans such as Google, Microsoft, and Liberty Mutual Insurance. In these roles, Robert has left an indelible mark by crafting seamless user interfaces, conducting comprehensive usability studies, and introducing innovative design concepts. Notably, he played a pivotal role in reducing launch times for new Google cloud products by approximately 50% through the implementation of a large-scale launch tracking tool, resulting in significant cost savings. 

She is a systems thinker who explores the impacts and interconnections between people and technology. Laura is interested in designing services that enable public health action and create a positive impact on community health. Most recently, Laura has served as the Product Manager on SimpleReport, a novel application built during COVID designed to increase the number and type of facility that could report mandated test results directly to public health.

Laura holds dual Masters degrees in Library and Information Science and User Experience Design from Kent State University, and has industry experience spanning education technology, healthcare, and consumer websites and applications. Laura lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband and their two dogs 

He has a background in logistics, marketing, and project management.  He is naturally curious and loves to find creative ways to solve problems. He holds a bachelor's degree in Communication from the University of Illinois.

Meghan supports HARP (HCQIS Access Roles and Profile) and File Management. She started as a Graphic Designer with an events management SAAS company and discovered her passion for research after observing a usability test. She leveraged her design skills and innate curiosity to transition to user research. She’s had the opportunity to work on multiple platforms including desktop, mobile web and mobile apps. In a previous role she helped create an end user solution powered by AI and NLP for a healthcare company’s first mobile application. Most recently she strategized CX-led ways to make purchasing residential internet services for homeowners a less frustrating process by understanding their mental models. 

Making connections and bringing people together to create trusting relationships is a core part of why she loves user research. She views conversations an opportunity to ask meaningful questions which leads to more informed questions, and eventually a deeper understanding of people and problems to solve. 

ISG has overall responsibility for delivering and maintaining technology to support CMS quality programs.  Mark brings over 25 years of IT experience in large-scale enterprise environments. He has spent the last two decades in direct support of CMS in both the private sector and as a CMS employee. In the private sector, he held multiple leadership roles. Mark also managed the delivery of IT services for the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine, Departments of Genetics and Pediatrics.

Her background is in experimental psychology, and she holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. She has expertise in both quantitative and qualitative research methods and has previously worked as a UX Researcher consulting for clients including Dell and Amazon. Previously, she was a quantitative UX Researcher on Expedia Group’s CX Measurement Team where she was responsible for analyzing large-scale survey data. She used statistical methods, including text analysis to deliver valuable insights around industry benchmarks. 

At Ventera, Chantal collaborates within a cross-functional product team, dedicated to enhancing user experiences within CMS/CCSQ's Enterprise Systems and Services (ESS). Currently, she supports the QualityNet Operations Dashboard (QNOD). At the program level, Chantal is actively working to enhance quantitative research methods to complement existing qualitative approaches. She strives to improve user experience through empathetic research, data-driven insights, and continuous innovation, ensuring products and services meet and exceed user expectations. 

A thought leader in the Agile product development community since its inception, Bryan has trained and coached hundreds of individuals, teams and organizations. He holds an International MBA and is a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST), Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) and Organization and Relationship Systems coach (ORSC)