Matthew McDonald

Vice President of Defense, Intel, and Health

ECS

Matthew T. McDonald is a recognized leader in AI delivery and complex mission-partner integration at ECS Federal, where he serves as Defense Chief Technology Officer and VP of Technology and Innovation. A 2024 MeriTalk AI Honors Award recipient, Matt brings deep expertise in architecting secure AI solutions that bridge the gap between government requirements and cutting-edge industry capabilities.
Matt led the development of major components of the Secure Unclassified Environment (SUNet) system supporting NGA Project MAVEN—a groundbreaking architecture that enables the Department of Defense to contract with best-of-breed AI developers from both industry and academia. This innovative framework provides stringent protection for vendor intellectual property and government CUI data while allowing the government to tap into a wider talent pool of AI developers, including those who may not possess security clearances or U.S. citizenship.
Matt also architected and deployed the AUKUS Common Development Environment (CDE), a Secret-releasable AI/ML development platform supporting collaborative model development on sonar data across three allied nations—the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The CDE provides a secure, shared environment where data scientists and AI/ML engineers from all three nations can jointly develop, train, test, and validate machine learning models against sensitive sonar datasets. This initiative directly advances undersea warfare capabilities and allied interoperability by enabling the pooling of data, expertise, and computational resources in a controlled, policy-compliant environment.
The caliber and impact of Matt's work has been recognized at the highest levels of the Department of Defense. In a personal commendation from DOD CDAO leadership, Matt and his team were thanked for "exceptional work" on Mission Partner Environment Projects Ramsey and Atlantic, with senior leaders noting, "You really get the sense that we are breaking new ground." The commendation highlighted that the Secretary of Defense specifically called out his satisfaction with these CJADC2 efforts, stating: "It's a big deal. People told us it was too hard. But we are doing it. There wasn't a big announcement. We just did it." The Secretary further noted that most of the work being accomplished "is exceptionally hard and, precisely because it is hard, it has never been done before." CDAO leadership concluded by telling Matt and his team: "You are doing the hard work without fanfare and with incredible impact."
Beyond his industry career, Matt has contributed to the next generation of cybersecurity professionals as an Adjunct Professor of IT Security and Project Management at George Mason University's Department of Information Sciences and Technology (2019–2023).

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