Michelle Zebrowski is being honored in Category 3: Using Innovation, Data, and Breaking Down Organizational Barriers for transforming how U.S. Customs and Border Protection uses data and artificial intelligence to support its workforce and mission. As CBP's Chief Data Officer and Artificial Intelligence Center of Innovation lead, Michelle oversees data, analytics, and AI capabilities supporting tens of thousands of employees and contractors. Her leadership has strengthened data governance, security, and accessibility while delivering practical tools that help officers, agents, analysts, and other personnel work more efficiently.

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In 2025, Michelle delivered CBP's first enterprise data catalog, bringing together nearly 250,000 data assets across 20 offices and completing the agency's first comprehensive data inventory. She also developed a dashboard covering more than 200 data-sharing agreements, established stronger data tagging and security practices to support zero-trust protections, and created the Data Analytics Center of Excellence. Building on this foundation, Michelle helped launch ChatCBP, the agency's first generative AI capability, to approximately 75,000 users, enabling employees to summarize complex policies, draft reports and briefings, and communicate information more efficiently.

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Michelle's work has significantly improved how CBP employees find, understand, and use mission-critical information. Data that previously took developers days to locate can now be found in minutes, reducing duplication and improving the quality and speed of frontline decision-making. Generative AI tools are also saving employees valuable time on administrative tasks, allowing them to focus more attention on inspections, operations, and public-facing responsibilities. By combining responsible AI, stronger data governance, and cross-organizational collaboration, Michelle has built a more connected, secure, and data-driven foundation for CBP's mission.