Meet the Program Management Office
The NIEM Program Management Office (PMO) executes the vision of NIEM established by the Executive Steering Council (ESC), while managing the day-to-day operations of NIEM. The office encourages the adoption and use of NIEM and oversees all working group and committee activities, regularly coordinating with communities of interest (COIs), principal stakeholders, and other information-sharing initiatives to promote collaboration and interest in NIEM priorities.
NIEM is an interagency program with shared funding and staffing resources; the PMO reflects this.
Donna Roy
Executive Director, National Information Exchange Model
Executive Director, Information Sharing Environment Office, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Department of Homeland Security
Donna Roy joined the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in December of 2006, and currently serves as the Chief Information Officer’s (CIO) executive for information-sharing. She is actively engaged in helping DHS lay the foundation and building blocks for an Information Sharing Environment (ISE), and drives DHS technical policy development, coordinating with the White House National Security Staff and the Program Manager for the ISE.
As the CIO’s executive for information-sharing, Donna is focused on removing technology barriers associated with the delivery of the ISE. Under her leadership are the oversight and operation of the program management offices for the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) and the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM).
Donna served as vice president of product development for a Fortune 200 company, as well as vice president for a major data operations division. She has over 27 years of IT experience, utilizing her data-oriented, enterprise-wide view for the implementation of standards to increase operational efficiency.
A former marine who knew nothing about IT going in, Donna got her start connecting modems via suction cups. From that moment on, she has been involved with information integration or exchange—the only difference now is the size, scale, and scope.
Justin Murphy
Deputy Executive Director, National Information Exchange Model
Senior Advisor, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Department of Justice
Justin Murphy currently serves as senior law enforcement advisor and special assistant to the chief information officer of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). As such, he is responsible for being a liaison with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement partners on topics relating to the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). In this role, he provides insight and recommendations on the department’s Law Enforcement Information Sharing Plan and its adoption across federal, state, local, and tribal partners. This includes an in-depth understanding of such programs as the FBI’s National Data Exchange (N-Dex), Sentinel, Next Generation Identification (NGI), and others. In addition to this role, Justin is the deputy executive director for NIEM.
Prior to re-joining the federal government, Justin served 20 years in law enforcement and retired as a major from the Fairfax County Police Department, the largest municipal department in Virginia. During his tenure with the county, he held command positions in every department bureau.
After his retirement, he held a number of senior positions in the private sector for large system integrators. Prior to joining OCIO, Justin was as a vice president for Science Application International Corporation (SAIC), where he served as the company’s account executive for the DOJ, responsible for mergers and acquisitions for the Integrated Security Solutions Business units of SAIC.
Justin is a graduate of the University of Scranton, and received an Executive Masters Degree from the University of Maryland. He is also a graduate of the University of Louisville, Southern Police Institute, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy.
Anthony Hoang
Managing Director, NIEM Program Management Office
Anthony Hoang joined the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of the Chief Information Officer in 2008 as the lead for the Information Sharing and Exchange (ISE) program.
Currently managing director of the NIEM Program Management Office, Anthony and his team focus on national-scale implementations of NIEM, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and data architecture at DHS and other federal, state, and local partners.
His expertise stems from nine years of architecting highly complex, cross-enterprise collaboration processes, including chairing XML information architecture initiatives for NIEM, DHS, the U.S. intelligence community, and GS1 (global retail and consumer goods).
Anthony holds a BS in systems engineering from the University of Virginia, and is an MBA candidate at University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.
He enjoys volunteering in his community, photography, reading, and music.
Christina Bapst
NIEM Communications and Outreach
Christina Bapst is, in her words, “pretty much all day, every day, all things NIEM.”
As NIEM communications lead, her duties include branding, traditional and digital communications, coordinating program events and training, and strategic outreach across all levels of government, international partners, and with the private sector.
Christina joined the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of the Chief Information Officer in 2008, where she helped coordinate the data collected, managed, and shared across DHS while overseeing a $33 million budget for the division. A testament to her success, Christina streamlined the division’s acquisition process, with 98 percent of projects completed on schedule.
Prior to joining the federal government, Christina worked as a project management consultant for Fortune 500 organizations and systems analyst in the oil and gas industry. She graduated magna cum laude from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and holds a Master of Business Administration from The George Washington University.
A lifelong optimist, Christina “never fails to see sunshine on a cloudy day.”
Her favorite thing about NIEM?
“The people. NIEM is a community based program; it’s the people at all levels of government and industry who make it a success.”
Michelle Vidanes
NIEM Business Architect
With over 12 years experience leading globally recognized information technology standard development initiatives in both the public and the private sector, Michelle Vidanes currently serves as a NIEM business architect and liaison to the NIEM Business Architecture Committee (NBAC).
Using a customer-centric approach, Michelle has strong expertise working closely with diverse stakeholders to capture, articulate, and build consensus around business and technical requirements; on-boarding, educating, maturing, and connecting communities of interest and organizations interested in developing and adopting standards; and articulating and promoting the value of standards.
Prior to her position as NIEM business architect, Michelle spent nine years as an XML data architect, leading globally recognized information-sharing standards initiatives for a non-profit supporting the retail automotive, marine, heavy-duty truck, and power sports industries. With a strong emphasis on increasing interoperability and efficiency, this leadership role successfully brought together diverse groups of individuals and organizations to collaborate in the development of standard XML schema-based message formats.
Michelle graduated with honors from the University of Virginia’s College at Wise with a BS in business administration.
Justin Stekervetz
NIEM Information Architect
As information architect for NIEM, Justin Stekervetz works closely with the NIEM Technical Architecture Committee (NTAC) in defining and documenting NIEM’s architectural requirements and provides management assistance for NTAC activities.
Justin has an extensive and diverse background in technical implementations, programming, data modeling, and systems integration, and currently leads UML profile development for NIEM in close collaboration with the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE), Object Management Group (OMG), and industry and academic partners.
He recently led efforts to develop a NIEM tools strategy to enhance tooling capabilities for the NIEM community, acting as a conduit between the NIEM PMO and industry partners. Justin also represented NIEM program efforts creating NIEM-conformant schemas for the recovery.gov data architecture, collaborating with the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in fulfilling the reporting requirements of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.
Justin graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a BS in computer science, is certified as a project management professional (PMP) through the Project Management Institute (PMI), and has received ITIL Foundations certification.
His favorite thing about NIEM?
"My favorite thing about NIEM is the diverse community of experts. Whether an expert in their specific community of interest or in the technical underpinnings of NIEM, there are always resources willing to help when needed. The NIEM community's passion for improving information sharing across federal, state, local and tribal governments is an exemplar of good government and the reason why I joined federal service!"
Christopher Traver
Senior Policy Advisor, Justice Information Sharing, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Department of Justice (DOJ)
DOJ Liaison to the NIEM PMO
Christopher Traver serves as a senior policy advisor for justice information-sharing at the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). He is responsible for supporting development of national policy, procedures, and technology standards on behalf of DOJ’s efforts to support the information sharing and technology needs of local, state, and tribal criminal justice practitioners.
Chris has been directly involved in NIEM since its inception, participating with DOJ to establish a national model for data sharing based on the Global Justice XML Data Model (GJXDM). He serves as DOJ’s representative to the XML Structure Task Force (XSTF)—the group responsible for developing GJXDM that currently governs the NIEM Justice domain—and works closely with BJA partner organizations to ensure adequate training and technical assistance resources are available to meet the needs of practitioners in the field.
Building on the success of NIEM, Chris’ work with the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (DOJ’s Global) has also expanded to include a SOA-based framework (Global Reference Architecture), security models for federated identity management (Global Federated Identity and Privilege Management), and automation tools for real-time privacy protection.
In his work, Chris seeks to establish partnerships at all levels of government across the country, help identify and align grant funding with practitioner needs, coordinate training and technical assistance delivery, and maintain close working relationships with private industry and other stakeholders to effectively address practitioner needs.
Chris serves as the DOJ liaison to the NIEM PMO, and participates directly on the justice and children, youth, and family services domains, and the NIEM Business Architecture Committee.
Arun Acharya
Data Architect, Enterprise Architecture Office, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
HHS Liaison to the NIEM PMO
As an HHS liaison to the NIEM PMO and member of Communication and Outreach Committee, Arun Acharya works with the PMO in a variety of tasks, and is currently engaged in promoting the use of NIEM across HHS.
Arun has an extensive and diverse background in technical implementations, standards deployment, process improvement, and enterprise reengineering in both public and private sectors.
His favorite thing about NIEM?
“For me, the most interesting thing about NIEM, at this still-early stage, is the fact that it is just as misunderstood as any major approach/concept/standard is when it is new—just before it becomes a ‘household’ word. There is a lot of work that still needs to be done, and I'm excited to have the opportunity to help.”