Keynote Speakers
We are thrilled to announce the keynote speakers for the NAGW National Conference in Milwaukee, WI Oct. 6-9, 2026.
Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026: Marisa Peacock
Keynote Session: Create with Compliance: Preparing the Next Generation of Web Professionals Through Compliance-Centered Design
Today's web professionals must navigate a complex landscape of accessibility standards, privacy regulations, artificial intelligence, intellectual property, platform policies, and ethical communication. Too often, compliance is treated as a final checkpoint rather than a foundational part of the creative and development process. This keynote makes the case for a shift in mindset, positioning compliance as a driver of innovation, trust, and user-centered design.
Drawing on Create with Compliance, a research-based instructional framework developed through design research and classroom implementation, Marisa Peacock will show how educators, mentors, and industry leaders can cultivate compliance-centered thinking in future web professionals. The framework combines multimodal learning materials, active learning strategies, and real-world scenarios, and covers five core areas every modern web professional should understand: Truth and Transparency, Accessibility and Inclusivity, Data Privacy and Protection, Platform and Policy Alignment, and Content Responsibility and Emerging Technologies, including artificial intelligence.
Whether you work in government, higher education, nonprofits, or the private sector, you'll leave with practical strategies for embedding compliance into creativity rather than adding it after the fact, and for preparing future web professionals to lead with ethics, accessibility, accountability, and innovation.
Time and place: Wednesday, Oct. 7 at 9:00 a.m., Hyatt Regency Milwaukee.
About Marisa
Marisa Peacock is a social media strategist, educator, and researcher whose work sits at the intersection of digital marketing, inclusive design, and emerging technologies. She is a Senior Lecturer in Advertising at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, teaching digital content strategy, social media management, public relations, and artificial intelligence in advertising. She also leads the Sandage Social Media Lab, an experiential learning initiative connecting students with real-world clients to develop data-driven communication strategies.
Marisa is the founder and chief strategist of Strategic Peacock, a consultancy established in 2010 that partners with nonprofits, small businesses, and educational institutions on digital marketing and social media strategy. With more than a decade of experience across sectors including independent schools and mission-driven organizations, she speaks regularly at national and international conferences on customer experience, digital strategy, and the evolving role of social media in organizational communication.
Her current research, part of her Master of Fine Arts in Design for Responsible Innovation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, focuses on integrating inclusive design principles into advertising education, with particular attention to digital accessibility and equity in teaching practices. Her teaching and mentorship have earned multiple institutional awards for excellence in undergraduate instruction and student impact. She holds a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Mount Holyoke College.
Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026: Dr. Alan Shark
Keynote Session: Everything Government Web Professionals Need to Know About AI — Since Yesterday
Artificial intelligence is transforming government communication, citizen service, public trust, and the role of the digital professional itself. In this keynote, Dr. Alan Shark, one of the nation's leading voices on technology leadership in the public sector, explores what these changes mean for the people who build and manage government digital services, and what every government web professional needs to know now.
Time and place: Thursday, Oct. 8 at 9:00 a.m., Hyatt Regency Milwaukee.
About Alan
Dr. Alan R. Shark is an associate professor at the School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and a core faculty member at the Center for Human AI Innovation in Society (CHAIS). He is a Senior Fellow of the Public Technology Institute (PTI), where he served as executive director for over twenty years, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Digital Government. A National Academy of Public Administration Fellow, he is founder and Co-Chair of the Standing Panel on Technology Leadership and an executive committee member of ASPA's Section on Science and Technology in Government, where he received the 2026 Thought Leader Award.
Dr. Shark has authored more than 12 books, including the upcoming Artificial Intelligence: Leadership for Public Sector Organizations, Practical Considerations, the recent Artificial Intelligence: A Primer for State and Local Government, and the textbook Technology and Public Management, second edition. He speaks and writes on all matters of technology leadership, with a special focus on artificial intelligence, policy, and governance, and brings his research to the public through his podcast series Sharkbytes.Net, where he interviews government tech leaders about their work and public service.
For the past four years he has written monthly thought leadership articles for Government Technology, Route Fifty, StateTech, FedTech, Governing Magazine, and American City & County Magazine (now Smart Cities Dive), and he has volunteered for the past two years leading discussions on innovation and AI for senior citizen groups throughout the Washington, DC area. He was a principal leader in developing an award-winning on-demand thought leadership TV series on AI and Public Service (three seasons) with NextGov Media and the National Academy of Public Administration, and appears in the new 2026 TV and on-demand series Four Futures of AI, produced by Fed Gov Today and EY. Through all these capacities, Dr. Shark has tirelessly helped academics and practitioners better understand the uses and limitations of science and technology in government.
