Dimitri Kusnezov

Under Secretary for Science & Technology

Department of Homeland Security

Dr. Dimitri Kusnezov [Kooz-NETS-off] was confirmed as the Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) on September 8, 2022. As the science advisor to the Homeland Security Secretary, Dr. Kusnezov heads the research, development, innovation and testing and evaluation activities in support of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) operational Components and first responders across the nation. S&T is responsible for identifying operational gaps, conceptualizing art-of-the-possible solutions, and delivering operational results that improve the security and resilience of the nation. 

Prior to DHS, Dr. Kusnezov was a theoretical physicist working at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) focusing on emerging technologies. He served in numerous positions, including the Deputy Under Secretary for Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Technology where he led efforts to drive AI innovation and bring it into DOE missions, business and operations, including through the creation of a new AI Office. 

Dr. Kusnezov has served in scientific and national security positions, including Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy, Chief Scientist for the National Nuclear Security Administration, Director of Advanced Simulation and Computing and the Director of the multi-billion-dollar National Security Science, Technology and Engineering programs. He created numerous programs, including for Minority Serving Institutions, international partners, private sector and philanthropic entities. He has worked across agencies to deliver major milestones such as DOE’s 10-year grand challenge for a 100 Teraflop supercomputer, and first of their kind and world’s fastest supercomputers. 

Prior to DOE and his pursuit of public service, Dr. Kusnezov had a long career in academia where he published more than 100 articles and edited two books. He joined Yale University faculty where he was a professor for more than a decade in Theoretical Physics and served as a visiting professor at numerous universities around the world. Before this post, Dr. Kusnezov did a brief postdoc and was an instructor at Michigan State University, following a year of research at the Institut fur Kernphysik, KFA-Julich, in Germany. He earned his MS in Physics and Ph.D. in Theoretical Nuclear Physics at Princeton University and received Bachelor of Arts degrees in Physics and in Pure Mathematics with highest honors from UC Berkeley.

 

Zaid Kahn

VP, Cloud AI & Advanced Systems Engineering

Microsoft

Zaid is currently a VP in Microsoft’s Silicon, Cloud Hardware, and Infrastructure Engineering organization where he leads systems engineering and hardware development for Azure including AI systems and infrastructure. Zaid is part of the technical leadership team across Microsoft that sets AI hardware strategy for training and inference. Zaid's teams are also responsible for software and hardware engineering efforts developing specialized compute systems, FPGA network products and ASIC hardware accelerators.

 

Prior to Microsoft Zaid was head of infrastructure at LinkedIn where he was responsible for all aspects of architecture and engineering for Datacenters, Networking, Compute, Storage and Hardware. Zaid also led several software development teams focusing on building and managing infrastructure as code. This included zero touch provisioning, software-defined networking, network operating systems (SONiC, OpenSwitch), self-healing networks, backbone controller, software defined storage and distributed host-based firewalls. The network teams Zaid led built the global network for LinkedIn, including POP's, peering for edge services, IPv6 implementation, DWDM infrastructure and datacenter network fabric. The hardware and datacenter engineering teams Zaid led were responsible for water cooling to the racks, optical fiber infrastructure and open hardware development which was contributed to the Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP).

 

Zaid holds several patents in networking and is a sought-after keynote speaker at top tier conferences and events. Zaid is currently the chairperson for the OCP Foundation Board. He is also currently on the EECS External Advisory Board (EAB) at UC Berkeley and a board member of Internet Ecosystem Innovation Committee (IEIC), a global internet think tank promoting internet diversity. Zaid has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Physics from the University of the South Pacific.