Maria Patterson (she/her)

Maria Patterson is a mission-oriented innovator whose passion is bringing transformational technology to life. Her experience building and driving the adoption of emerging tech spans academic, corporate, startup, and government environments. After earning a PhD in astronomy, Maria designed an open data platform to stream data from the world's largest telescope camera publicly in real-time.

As director of one of the first petabyte-scale science clouds, she worked with a non-profit consortium of researchers to establish a partnership with NOAA to build an open data hub, making large amounts of climate data publicly accessible for the first time.

She also worked in a venture studio, designing data science applications for software startups and partnering with large companies to develop innovation playbooks through systematically conceiving and launching new ventures.

Maria served as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow for two terms, where she advised the Department of Labor on inclusive AI practices in hiring and employment and led the development of a framework for responsible AI technology adoption across the agency.

After a year-long sabbatical, which she spent jumpstarting her right brain as a full-time woodcarving artist, Maria is excited to be returning to civic innovation in a new role with the US Federal government.