Chandra Donelson to serve as acting Air Force chief data and AI officer

Chandra Donelson will take on the role of Department of the Air Force chief data and artificial intelligence officer on an acting basis while also maintaining her job as the space data and AI officer for the Space Force, according to the Pentagon.

The Air Force CDAO position was previously held by Eileen Vidrine, who retired last month after a long career in government service.

Donelson’s responsibilities as acting CDAO will include overseeing development and implementation of “DAF-wide strategies for enterprise data management, analytics, digital transformation, and responsible/ethical artificial intelligence to optimize performance and drive innovation in and across all missions and operations,” the department’s chief information officer said Tuesday in a LinkedIn post announcing the appointment.

CDAO objectives include helping the department become “AI-ready” by 2025 and “AI-competitive” by 2027; addressing ethics considerations for mission systems and programs; developing a more digitally savvy workforce; and expanding partnerships with other Department of Defense components, government agencies, industry and academia, according to the office.

Artificial intelligence and IT are key modernization priorities for the U.S. military, which aims to use these capabilities to support battlefield missions and back-office tasks.

Prior to being tapped for her new position, Donelson served in a number of roles at the Pentagon related to these types of technologies.

She will be dual-hatted as the Space Force’s data and AI officer — a position she has held since December — responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of initiatives across the branch, including strategies, policies and standards for data acquisition, storage, processing and security, according to her LinkedIn profile and the CIO’s announcement.

While previously working at the Department of the Army Headquarters, G-2 intelligence directorate, Donelson was deputy chief data officer from 2021 to 2023 and OSINT data manager from 2017 to 2021, according to her official bio.

She also served as an enlisted intelligence operations specialist in the Air Force and is currently an Air Force reservist supporting U.S. Central Command’s J-2 intelligence directorate.

Donelson holds master’s degrees in IT from Texas A&M University-Texarkana and data science and analytics in high-performance computing from the University of Missouri-Columbia, among other degrees, according to her bio.