Congratulations to the 2019 Rising Stars

Each year, the Rising Star Awards recognize individuals who are early in their federal IT careers yet already are having an outsized impact. The women and men listed below have been selected both for their accomplishments over the past year and for their leadership potential in this community.

These awards are part of our larger Government Innovation Awards program. A joint effort of FCW, GCN, Washington Technology and Defense Systems, these awards also recognize the companies supporting the government’s transformation and the most innovative technology initiatives across the public sector.

The Public Sector Innovation winners were announced today as well; the 2019 Industry Innovators will be revealed in the coming days.  You can learn more about the overall Government Innovation Awards here.

We'll be running full profiles of the 2019 Rising Stars this fall, and the winners will be honored in person at the Nov. 7 Government Innovation Awards dinner. Until then, here's a quick salute this year's winners — 21 individuals we're confident you'll be hearing about for years to come:

• Brecken W. Auchterlonie
  Business Development Manager
  SAIC
• Kevin E. Brisley
  Manpower Analyst / Senior Human Resources Manager
  Command, Control, Communications and Cyber Systems Directorate, U.S. Transportation Command
• Kaitlin I. Bulavinetz
  Managing Director
  Washington Cyber Roundtable
• Will Cahoe
  Projects Coordinator, 10x
  General Services Administration
• Gilberto Castro
  Global Networking Manager
  Georgetown University
• David Catanoso
  Director, Enterprise Cloud Solutions Office, Dept of Veterans Affairs
  Department of Veteran Affairs
• Taylor K. Chott
  Data Scientist
  CACI
• Anna Cordrey
  Deputy Program Manager
  NASA
• Mahtab Emdadi
  Regional Sales Director
  Dell Technologies
• Omid Ghaffari-Tabrizi
  Acquisitions Lead
  Centers of Excellence, General Services Administration
• Ryan V. Hendricks
  USA Performance Product Development Supervisor
  Office of Personnel Management
• Dr. Leonie Heyworth
  Director of Synchronous Telehealth, VHA Office of Connected Care/ Telehealth Services, Department of Veterans Affairs
  Veterans Health Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs
• Michelle Johnson
  Communications Manager, Senior Research Analyst
  Section 809 Panel, Defense Acquisition University
• Samer Madarani
  Partner Account Director - Partnership Development
  Dovel Technologies
• Ellen Nadeau
  Deputy Manager, Privacy Framework
  National Institute of Standards and Technology
• Lt. Jason A. Pawlak
  Cyber Battle Captain
  U.S. Transportation Command
• Jonathan Riksen
  Associate Partner & Client Leader
  IBM
• Christopher Rorvig
  Senior Consultant, Consulting Services
  CGI Federal
• Blake M. Scates
  Digital Program Manager
  Department of Veterans Affairs
• Robert G. Sheldon
  Head of Technology Strategy, Public Sector
  CrowdStrike
• Travis Sorensen
  CEO
  Oddball, Inc.