Cori Zarek is a 2001 graduate of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She is the Vice President of North America for Apolitical, the world's largest network of public servants. Previously, Cori served as the Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Digital Service at The White House and she is also a former Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer. Cori was also previously at Georgetown University where she was the executive director of the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation and taught courses on public interest technology. Cori previously worked for the U.S. National Archives, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

In 2020, Cori co-founded U.S. Digital Response which matches pro-bono technologists to work with government and organizations responding to urgent challenges and in 2021, she co-founded Technologists for the Public Good, the professional association for public interest technologists. She is a 2018 Mozilla Foundation fellow and serves on the advisory board for the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. Cori lives in Washington, D.C.