Dr. Julie Waters serves as Senior Technical Advisor for Data & Analytics with the Office of Policy and Program Analysis at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In this role, she provides expert technical advice to agency leadership for FEMA’s data and analytics modernization and sustainment efforts, including executive oversight of a multi-year effort to develop a modern, cloud-based data platform called the FEMA Data Exchange (FEMADex).
Through her work, Dr. Waters champions the use of data as a strategic asset in support of FEMA’s mission to help people before, during, and after disasters.
Prior to this role, Dr. Waters served in multiple leadership roles within FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after joining DHS in 2009 as a Presidential Management Fellow. Within FEMA, she led the Enterprise Analytics Division within the Office of Policy and Program Analysis, where she led a multidisciplinary team of data analysts who provided trusted, high-impact decision support to senior leadership. Under her leadership, FEMA established a new data governance model and launched the Enterprise Data & Analytics Modernization Initiative (EDAMI) program to move the agency toward a cloud-based analytics infrastructure. Dr. Waters also led situational awareness and decision support within FEMA’s National Response Coordination Center and directed strategic planning and policy implementation within FEMA Resilience. At DHS headquarters, she led data analytics projects and teams spanning the fields of risk analysis, national preparedness, and biosurveillance, with a common theme of integrating data and analysis from multiple sources and methods to inform public policy, strategy, and budgetary decisions.
In addition to her federal service, Dr. Waters led strategy and business operations for a large global consulting firm’s investment program in digital and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and capabilities to support 4000+ client-facing technology consulting professionals in over 40 countries, including the establishment and growth of new digital and AI consulting teams in multiple countries within Central and South America.
Dr. Waters holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and master’s degrees in engineering and applied mathematics from Brown University, and a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan. She resides in Washington, DC with her wife and two cats.