Advisory Council
Role
The Advisory Council serves in an advisory capacity to the Board of Trustees on Internet number resource policy and related matters. Adhering to the procedures in the Policy Development Process, the Advisory Council forwards consensus-based policy proposals to the Board for ratification.
The Advisory Council consists of 15 elected members. The President of ARIN is an ex-officio member, and acts as the liaison between the Board of Trustees and the Advisory Council. Read the Election Guidelines for more information on how Council members are nominated and elected.
Current Members of the Advisory Council
Biographies
Lily Edinam Botsyoe is a Ph.D. candidate in Information Technology at the University of Cincinnati, where she is part of the inaugural Presidential Fellowship Program. A former Adjunct Instructor, Lily is an active contributor to technology communities and an advocate for Women and Youth Inclusion, Accessibility, Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Digital Sustainability. She brings extensive experience working with critical security frameworks and regulations, including GDPR, ISO27001, NIST 800, HIPAA, and PCI DSS. She has a strong background in Internet governance and policy, serving as the Coordinator of the Ghana Youth Internet Governance Forum and a steering committee member for both the West Africa and Africa Youth Internet Governance Forums. She has participated in several Internet governance programs, including ARIN 51 and ARIN 54 Fellowships, the ICANN NextGen program at ICANN 77, and the ICANN 81 Fellowship. Additionally, her internship as an auditor for ISOC’s MANRS Program in 2022 and 2023 reflects her commitment to fostering secure, sustainable, and resilient internet operations. Lily was elected to the Advisory Council in 2024. Her current term expires 31 December 2027.
Doug is currently the Chief Information & Technology Officer for Coordinated Care Services, Inc. (CCSI), a large mental and behavioral health services non-profit based in Rochester, NY. He has over 25 years of varied experience in the IT industry, most recently working nearly a decade as CIO for multiple New York State counties. Prior to his government service, he founded, worked for, and led several IT consulting businesses. Doug is active in numerous community events and organizations, with 13 years of board service as Supervisory Committee Chair at Visions Federal Credit Union, one of the largest credit unions in the US, and helped launch and build the LUMA Projection Arts Festival in Binghamton, NY, the largest outdoor projection-mapping art festival in the US. Doug holds a degree in Computer Science from Binghamton University, a degree in Business Administration from SUNY Broome, and the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) cybersecurity certification, along with several additional technical certifications. He was appointed to the AC for a one-year term to fill the vacancy of Robert Seastrom’s seat in 2023 and elected to a three-year term in 2023. His current term expires 31 December 2026.
Gerry E. George is an ICT professional, with over 25 years in the industry. He has a BA in Economics, and a MS in Management Information Systems. Long an advocate of the benefits and adoption of ICT as an essential tool in business and for national development and in helping to bridge the digital divide in developing economies, he participates in local and regional policy fora aimed at Telecommunications liberalization, ICT Policy and Legislation and in the regulation of the Telecommunications sector, having been a Commissioner with the National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (NTRC – Saint Lucia) since 2011. He serves as the President of the ICT Association of Saint Lucia (SLICTA), and is an active member of the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG), Caribbean ICT stakeholders Virtual Community (CIVIC) a participant in activities of other international organizations such as ISOC, ICANN at Large Structure (ALS) and frequently participates in local, regional and international fora on telecommunications and ICT matters. He operates his own ICT Consultancy – DigiSolv, providing ICT solutions for business enterprises and has participated in or advised on a number of ICT technical committees and policy consultations. He is a frequent go-to by other members of the local ICT fraternity for advice and consultations. Gerry was elected to the AC in 2022. His current term expires 31 December 2025.
Elizabeth has nearly 20 years experience in technical roles at multiple Tier 2/3 service providers. She is currently Senior Manager of Data Network Planning at Lightpath. Previously, she was a Principal Architect at Crown Castle for seven years. She has also held various planning, engineering, and operations positions at Lightower, PAETEC, and Cavalier. In these roles, she has been responsible for all aspects of network platform architecture, strategy, and policy including number resource allocation and routing policies, and has shepherded the processes for IPv4 resource acquisition and organizational transfers. Her areas of focus include providing the perspective of ISPs that are growing and dealing with the constraints of scarce IPv4 resources and expanding IPv6 advocacy to enterprise organizations. Elizabeth was elected to the Advisory Council in 2023 and her current term expires 31 December 2026.
Bill is a computer networking generalist with deep expertise in network protocols, resilient and scalable Linux software development, C programming, UNIX and Linux systems administration, and Internet security. Bill is a direct holder of both modern and legacy ARIN number resources. His garage is multihomed on the Internet with IPv4 and IPv6 using AS 11875. He has a degree in computer science. He has been the lead engineer for an ISP, has been in and out of government, worked for political organizations, worked for the intelligence community, and has built novel systems for Amazon and Facebook. As proprietor of Dirtside Systems, a small business, Bill currently consults with the Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) helping academic research scientists with BGP and network measurement products. Bill was elected to the Advisory Council in 2024 and his current term expires 31 December 2027.
Kat Hunter has been a number resource strategist and an active member of the ARIN community since 2004. She manages the number resources for voice, video, and data for both the commercial and residential areas of Comcast. She also manages IPv4 recycling within the organization while new IPv6 space is deployed. Kat has a broad yet technical view of a large ISP down to end customers, which gives her a unique view of the information and technical requirements needed to make inclusive decisions while working on policy. She also occasionally assists the business unit and security teams with IP fraud evaluations. Kat has also spent time as Communications Chair for TechWomen Philadelphia (2017) and is currently a member of TechWomen South Jersey and Net-grrls. Kat was elected to the Advisory Council in 2018, and re-elected in 2021 and 2024. She was also part of the ARIN Community Grant Program Selection Committee in 2021 and 2023. She served as Advisory Council Vice Chair from January 2021 through December 2023 and as the Chair of the Advisory Council in 2024. Her current term expires 31 December 2027.
Brian is currently Assistant Director of Operations for Virginia Tech, leading an Escalation team of IT subject matter experts. He is a Certified Scrum Professional, member of the ScrumAlliance, member of Mike Cohn’s Agile Mentors Community, and a certified IPv6 Engineer and member of the IPv6 Forum. He has worked in the higher education electronics and telecommunications industry since 1984, chasing electrons since 1979. He helped install Virginia Tech’s first 10Base-T hubs in 1991. He helped VT procure additional IPv4 address space to augment our legacy address blocks just before ARIN was completely depleted of IPv4 address space. He also helped VT procure IPv6 address space to replace old MAX blocks. He has served on other advisory councils for Network Monitoring software and served on the Board of Directors for the AHECTA organization. He has been active in the ARIN and NANOG community since 2007. He participated in the 2019 EDUCAUSE IPv6 panel along with other ARIN members to promote the use IPv6. He is the author of Virginia Tech’s IPv6 Case Study on the web site. Brian was elected in 2021 to serve a one-year term on the AC and was re-elected in 2022. Brian has served multiple terms on the ARIN Fellowship Selection committee, currently serves on the Nomination Committee, and is a member of the NRPM Working Group. His current term expires 31 December 2025.
Kendrick Knowles is Principal Partner of Knowles Consulting Group in The Bahamas and serves in various private sector positions in either senior management or as technical consultant. He has held IT leadership positions in various industries from service provider, financial services, legal, insurance and retail management. Kendrick is skilled in ICT Network Design, Project Management, Risk Management, Troubleshooting, Public Speaking, and Virtualization. He is a qualified engineer with over a dozen professional level certifications including the PMP, CCNP and Security+ and holds a certificate in Management from Harvard Business School. He was elected to the AC in October 2022. His current term expires 31 December 2025.
Kaitlyn Pellak is a Technical Business Developer at Amazon Web Services where she works on IPv4 acquisitions. Prior to that role, she also worked for an IP address broker, conducting extensive research of legacy IPv4 assets in ARIN and all other RIRs hoping to determine rightful ownership of the space. These roles have led her to work to have a thorough understanding of not only ARIN policy, but the number resource policy of the other RIRs as well – with a focus on policy related to legacy resource holders. She has additional experience working in the non-profit sector where she spent a year and a half managing the membership activities for a higher-education focused non-profit. She gained experience in policy writing, membership engagement, and marketing. Kaitlyn was elected to the Advisory Council in 2023 and her current term expires 31 December 2026.
Gus Reese is the Director for Edge Engineering for Cogent Communications Inc. He has been in this role for 10 years. His current duties include managing all Cogent IP resources, acting as the point of contact for each of the five RIRs, and directing a team of 25 engineers who are responsible for all customer and peer transit connections and Cogent’s own global peering exchange. Prior to that he was a senior network engineer responsible for engineering solutions for customers to connect to each other and the rest of the Internet and helped deploy network-wide rollout of IPv6 in 2007. Gus got his start in the Internet industry in 1998 working for a local dial-up provider in Fort Worth, Texas. Gus was elected to the Advisory Council in October of 2022. His term expires 31 December 2025.
Leif Sawyer is currently working as a network engineer at GCI Communication Corp., having been employed there for over 27 years. His areas of focus include IPv4 and IPv6 deployment strategy, network and security architecture, VOIP infrastructure, and network management automation. Previously, Leif has worked for the University of Alaska Anchorage and as an independent contractor in the telecommunications industry. He was elected to the Advisory Council in October of 2014, and re-elected in 2017, 2020, and 2023. His current term expires 31 December 2026.
Alicia Trotman currently serves as a Communication Specialist with Mission Critical Partners. She has advanced expertise in telecommunications regulations with specific focus on small island developing states and has over a decade of expertise in providing ICT development, regulatory and monitoring policies, and mechanisms to promote and maintain a competitive Telecommunications environment. Alicia was appointed by the Advisory Council to a one-year term beginning January 2018 to fill Dan Alexander’s open seat, and was re-elected in 2018, 2021, and 2024. Her current term expires 31 December 2027.
Matthew Wilder is a Senior Engineer with TELUS Communications, a leading ISP and technology company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. At TELUS Matthew is responsible for IP Address Management and IPv6 strategy. Matthew serves the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as past Chair of the Vancouver Section and Western Area Chair of IEEE Canada. He has written articles for IEEE Canadian Review, as well as blogs for ARIN, ISOC, and other industry publications. Matthew holds a Bachelor of Applied Sciences from the University of British Columbia as well as a Master of Business Administration from the University of Victoria. Matthew was elected to the AC in October of 2020, and re-elected in 2023. His current term expires 31 December 2026.
Alison is a network engineer for the state of Oregon, focusing on a diverse wide area network that serves over 40,000 customers. She has been in this role for almost 25 years and has truly enjoyed watching the evolution of the state’s network from a disjointed mesh of dial-up to a mature and diverse enterprise. Her duties include network architecture and design, dynamic network analytics, pre-deployment application testing, and the broad duty of keeping the network up, fast and available. She also serves on the Advisory Council for the INTC and is on the board for the Oregon Track Club. Alison was elected to the AC in October of 2016, and was re-elected in 2019 and 2022. Her current term expires 31 December 2025.
Chris Woodfield is a 25-plus-year industry veteran, having served in architecture, engineering, and software development roles at Twitter, Salesforce.com, i3d.net, Drivenets, and other companies. In addition to serving on the Advisory Council, Chris was a member of the North American Network Operators’ Group (NANOG) Program Committee from 2016 to 2024. Chris was first elected to the Advisory Council in October 2016 and was reelected in 2017, 2021, and 2024. His current term expires 31 December 2027.