Helen GF Nelson (she/her) (Fed)

Helen Nelson is a Supervisory Information Technology Security Specialist in the Office of Information Systems Management's IT Security and Networking Division, serving as the IT Security Officer (ITSO) for the Office of the Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director. In this capacity, she manages all IT security- and privacy-related activities in the NIST Director's Office to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of customer, business partner, employee, and NIST programmatic information in compliance with the U.S. Federal Information Security Modernization Act. In addition to her ITSO role, she oversees and directs a team providing ITSO support to NIST's critical and agency-wide services including human resources, facilities, property management, financial resource management, acquisitions, as well as support to NIST's administration of national and highly visible initiatives such as programs associated with the Creating Helpful Incentives for Producing Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act.

Prior to serving as ITSO for the NIST Director's Office, Mrs. Nelson was ITSO for the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory, where she also provided support in other capacities such as Ombudsman and Quality Manager, as well as Vice Chair for the Executive Committee of the Conference on Precision Electromagnetic Measurements (CPEM), which is an international and biennial conference attended by scientists and engineers from metrology institutes, universities, industrial and governmental standards labs, and manufacturers of precision measurement instruments.

Before joining NIST, she served as an IT Auditor-In-Charge at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Office of the Inspector General, directing a team performing IT audits and reviews of the efficiency, effectiveness, and security of GSA's IT programs and systems.

Mrs. Nelson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Decision and Information Sciences from the University of Maryland College Park and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Maryland Global Campus. She is also a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).