The Data Center Dialogue: A Community Town Hall on the Realities, Risks, and Rewards of AI Infrastructure

Mark Strama is Director of the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at the University of Texas at Austin, and a Professor of Practice in UT’s Moody College of Communication and in the Plan II program. He is also a member of the Texas Ethics Commission.

Prior to joining the UT faculty in 2023, Mark spent ten years at Google Fiber (now known as GFiber) working to upgrade the speed and quality of internet service in the United States. Before working at Google, he served five terms in the Texas House of Representatives, where he focused on renewable energy, public education, and electoral reform. Mark received Honorable Mentions on Texas Monthly's Ten Best Legislators list in three of his five sessions in the House; Texas Monthly said "Strama cares as much about others' success as his own."

Prior to running for public office, Mark founded the first company to enable Americans to fill out a voter registration form on the Internet - 700,000 people used this technology to register to vote in the 2000 election cycle. During the 1996 election cycle, Mark was Director of Programs at Rock the Vote, a non-partisan organization that works with MTV and the music industry to engage young people in the political process. He previously worked for former Texas Governor Ann Richards and Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis.

Mark graduated from Brown University with degrees in philosophy and political science. He is married to Crystal Cotti, a former Austin City Hall reporter. They have three industrious daughters and one very lazy dog.

As the Chief AI Architect and Futurist at Split Futures, Annie Hardy works directly with customers and through partners to rearchitect the cognitive workforce, guiding organizations and workers to a human-centered future where artificial intelligence adoption leads to positive human outcomes. Ms. Hardy is a patent-holding inventor on the topics of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision, with prior work at Cisco Systems as a Global AI Architect and Futurist among their global AI Infrastructure Partners. Ms. Hardy is a startup advisor, member of the Association of Professional Futurists, and a seasoned thought leader on the topics of artificial intelligence, spatial computing, emerging technologies, enterprise innovation, the future of work, the future of the internet, workplace culture, and AI adoption. Ms. Hardy holds a degree in Communications and Spanish with a focus on Gender Studies from Austin College, and is certified by the Association of Professional Futurists.

Drew grew up in Wisconsin, obtaining his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Here he developed a special interest in energy and also obtained a certificate in Engineering Thermal Energy Systems. Immediately following his graduation in May of 2021, Drew moved to Texas to pursue a PhD at the University of Texas at Austin.

Drew obtained his PhD in November of 2025 with research interests in big picture energy systems and improving reliability of the power grid. He researched grid development scenarios and studied what efforts are needed to prepare for increasingly probable extreme weather events. The methods involved in this research are robust capacity expansion models of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and power grid infrastructure, which can be modified to explore specific case studies. These case studies are typically plans that involve grid interconnections, distributed energy resources, and storage options at utility and distributed scales.

Drew moved to a Postdoctoral Fellow position within the Webber Energy Group at the start of January 2026 and is actively pursuing his research interests in demand growth, transmission expansion, demand flexibility, and powering the AI era.

State Representative Stan Kitzman represents Texas House District 85, a critical rural and suburban corridor encompassing Austin, Colorado, Fayette, Waller, Wharton, and parts of Fort Bend counties. Hailing from Pattison in Waller County and rooted as a sixth-generation Texan descended from Stephen F. Austin’s “Old Three Hundred,” Representative Kitzman represents a vast geography defined by major resource arteries, including the Brazos, San Bernard, and Colorado river basins. As commercial development and digital infrastructure expand across the state, his district sits at the direct intersection of regional growth, critical natural resources, and agricultural heritage.

In the Texas Legislature, Representative Kitzman has emerged as a central leader on resource policy, power reliability, and resource management. He serves on the House Agriculture and Livestock Committee, the House Appropriations Committee (where he chairs the Article III subcommittee), and the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission. Demonstrating his focus on utility and conservation planning, he was chosen by his colleagues to chair the bi-cameral Water Caucus, serves as a Texas representative to the Energy Council, and sits on the board of the Texas Water Conservation Association. Throughout his legislative tenure, he has been a vocal advocate for the long-term future of Texas water security, energy grid resilience, and the protection of production agriculture.

Amy Polvado is the Founder and CEO of Facilimax, an Austin-based company building AI-powered digital twin software on NVIDIA Omniverse for universities, hospitals, and data centers. She also leads Harmon Labs, a vocational school preparing workers for careers in power plant operations, data center technology, and nuclear energy, and serves as CEO of Red River Infrastructure, developing large-scale data center sites across Texas.

Amy is a doctoral student at Purdue Polytechnic Institute, where her research focuses on deploying digital twins to edge wearable devices for frontline workforce training. She is also Chairwoman of the US Proptech Council, host of the Data Center News Show, and author of From Data to Deals. Her career spans semiconductor manufacturing at Applied Materials and IBM, building a real estate private equity firm to over $1 billion in assets under management, and technology commercialization at UT Austin.