CDC Foundation – WAI 2025 Summit: From Contributor to Catalyst in 6 Months

 

Workforce Acceleration Initiative (WAI) Summit 2025

In just six months, I went from onboarding to being recognized on stage at the CDC Foundation’s WAI 2025 Summit for my contributions to public health data modernization.

• On-stage recognition: My name and story were formally announced from the stage, highlighting my role as a key force in modernizing public health data for the Bear River Health Department.

• System-level innovation: Led data integration and automation across counties, building pipelines and dashboards that move teams from manual spreadsheets to real-time, decision-ready data.

• National visibility: Featured in the official WAI Newsletter and Rewards & Reflections Board, showcasing my work as an example of how technical talent can drive impact in local public health.

• Cross-functional momentum: Built strong collaboration between IT, analytics, and field teams, ensuring that the systems I design are actually adopted and used by staff and leadership.

• Trusted by leaders: Earned the trust and support of national mentors and leaders, who see my work as creating lasting value—not just tools, but infrastructure that will outlive the fellowship.

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CDC Foundation – WAI 2026 Summit & Data Modernization Leadership

 

Workforce Acceleration Initiative (WAI) – National Platform

As a Data Engineer with the CDC Foundation’s Workforce Acceleration Initiative, I’ve been invited to share my work on “paper to pixels” data modernization on multiple WAI platforms.

• Represented Bear River Health Department (BRHD) in national conversations about building low-cost, scalable data systems that local health departments can maintain long term.

• Demonstrated end-to-end solutions—from raw data exports and CSVs to BigQuery data warehouses, automated pipelines, and KPI dashboards used by executives, boards, and program teams.

• Highlighted how we integrate data quality checks, governance rules, and AI-assisted validation to keep public health data accurate, secure, and actionable.

• Contributed to discussions on how data engineers, architects, and program leaders can partner to modernize systems without losing the local context and relationships that make public health work.

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Testimonial from Local Leadership – Bear River Health Department

 

Recognition from BRHD Health Strategist

BRHD leadership has publicly recognized the impact of my work on their data modernization journey.

• Holly Budge, Health Strategist at BRHD, shared that my expertise has been instrumental in building dashboards that simply wouldn’t have been possible without this support.

• This testimonial underscores my role in:

  • Designing the BRHD data warehouse and pipelines

  • Delivering production dashboards across clinical, behavioral health, and environmental health programs

  • Translating complex architecture into simple tools staff can use in their everyday workflows.

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NACCHO 360 – National Public Health Data & Leadership 2025

 

NACCHO 360 Conference – Anaheim, California

At NACCHO 360, I had the opportunity to represent both the CDC Foundation and Bear River Health Department.

• I shared insights into our data modernization work—focused on building automated, efficient, and scalable systems that support real-time public health decision-making.

• It was great to receive positive feedback from Judy Monroe (CEO) on developing practical, cost-conscious technology solutions that help strengthen public health infrastructure.

• I also had meaningful conversations with public health leaders and board members about scalable, sustainable data solutions that can be adopted across agencies in future.

• This experience reinforced my commitment to building innovative data systems that create real impact for communities.

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NACCHO 360 & PHI*con 2026

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Official Speaker & Presenter
CDC Foundation | Workforce Acceleration Initiative (WAI)

Selected as an official speaker and presenter at NACCHO 360 and PHI*con 2026, where I represented the CDC Foundation and Bear River Health Department by presenting our work on "Data Modernization on a Budget: Building a Secure, Affordable, Response-Ready Analytics Platform for Local Health Departments."

• Presented a scalable, cloud-native public health data modernization architecture using open-source technologies.

• Demonstrated automated data pipelines, modern analytics, and dashboard solutions supporting public health decision-making.

• Introduced a proof-of-concept for Agentic AI-powered data agents to enable natural language access to public health data.

• Connected with public health leaders and agencies to share practical, low-cost approaches for data modernization.