Former White House CIO Theresa Payton will present an address as part of the Adlai E. Stevenson Memorial Lecture Series at 7:30 p.m. October 29, in the Bone Student Center, Prairie Room on the campus of Illinois State University.

Her talk is titled “Hype or Reality? Your Workplace and Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning & the Internet of Things” and is free and open to the public. There will be a master class for the University communities at 3 p.m. that same day in the Hansen Student Center at Illinois Wesleyan.

From 2006 to 2008, Payton oversaw IT operations for President George W. Bush and his staff as the first female to serve as White House Chief Information Officer. Previously, she held executive roles in banking technology at Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Currently, she serves as president and CEO of a cyber security consulting company, Fortalice Solutions, LLC and co-founder of Dark Cubed, a cyber security product company.

Beyond the corporate world, Payton stars in the CBS series Hunted, where she details new innovations in combating cyber threats and securing “big data.”

The Adlai E. Stevenson Memorial Lecture Series was established by a group of local civic leaders to honor the legacy of Bloomington native Adlai E. Stevenson II, former Illinois Governor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, after his passing in 1965. The events are co-hosted by Illinois Wesleyan University and Illinois State University.