GSA’s web design system head replaced with Treasury AI engineer
J. David Ake/Getty Images
The U.S. Web Design System is intended to help the federal government build accessible and mobile-friendly websites.
Sam Corcos — the Treasury Department’s chief information officer who recently took on three roles at the General Services Administration — has tapped Ryan Parker, an AI engineer at the Treasury Department, to lead the U.S. Web Design System, or USWDS, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The move comes after GSA unexpectedly placed Anne Petersen, the longtime leader of the USWDS, on administrative leave a few weeks ago, the sources said. Individuals involved with USWDS started to lose access to GitHub repositories this week, meaning they can no longer perform certain coding tasks though, Parker and Corcos can, the sources added.
Nextgov/FCW found that GitHub accounts for both Parker and Corcos were making changes to the main USWDS repository as of Wednesday afternoon, including adding a Coderabbit AI code reviewer.
Spokespeople for the General Services Administration and Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the personnel shakeup.
USWDS is a design system the federal government uses to build accessible, mobile-friendly websites, according to a GSA web page. Websites for the National Institutes of Health, Department of Veterans Affairs and NASA have been built with USWDS.
The White House formed its own design-specific organization to transform government websites in August 2025 with the launch of the National Design Studio. That team has supported the launch of new websites like realfood.gov and TrumpRx.gov, in addition to collaborating with agencies on reworking existing websites like login.gov.
President Donald Trump's executive order that created the National Design Studio tasked the organization’s chief design officer and the GSA administrator with updating USWDS.
Corcos serves as the acting director of the Technology Transformation Services, acting deputy commissioner for the Federal Acquisition Service and acting assistant administrator for Login.gov, GSA confirmed last month. Corcos is also an alum of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk’s cost-cutting initiative that was stood up at the start of the Trump administration and officially expired July 4 this year.
Parker joined the Treasury Department in May after engineering stints in the private sector, according to his LinkedIn.
Nextgov/FCW Cybersecurity Reporter David DiMolfetta contributed to this report.