Commonwealth of Virginia wins StateScoop Awards
We are thrilled to congratulate members of the Office of Data Governance and Analytics (ODGA) team on their outstanding recognition at the 2026 StateScoop 50 Awards.
The StateScoop 50 honors the best and brightest making state government more efficient, effective and innovative. Winners were determined by more than 1.5 million votes of 140 finalists. We are proud to be recognized alongside our exceptional peers in the following award categories.
Marcus Thornton, deputy chief data officer, was honored with the Golden Gov: State Executive of the Year Award for his visionary leadership in technology transformation.
Chris Wooten, director of data engineering and architecture, received the State Leadership Award for his work implementing innovative technologies and driving meaningful change in government IT.
Additionally, the ODGA, Opioid Abatement Authority (OAA) and Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA) teams' work on the Substance Use Disorder Analytics (SUDA) project earned the State IT Innovation of the Year Award.
SUDA was recognized as an initiative that encourages collaboration and aims to deliver actionable insights to organizations working to combat the opioid crisis by providing transparency to Virginians. This recognition is a remarkable achievement and a testament to the dedication and talent within ODGA, VITA, OAA, and the Commonwealth to utilize data to create positive results for Virginians.
Thank you for your continuous support of the ODGA office and data analytics for the Commonwealth.