Nick Pallotta serves as the Head of Workforce Performance and Staff Development at USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) where he is maturing the agency's project management capabilities towards its end-to-end digital modernization effort.  Nick founded and leads both the NASS Machine Learning Group and the USDA’s Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence; and serves on the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) Data Working Group.

Nick was recognized in 2023 with the Data Innovator of the Year Datum Award by the Data Foundation for his innovative usage of AI to meet an Evidence Act requirement to discover and display public usages of agency datasets on the NASS website.

​

He holds a Project Management Professional certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI) and a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification from the American Society for Quality (ASQ).