US Notify pilot launches out of 10x 🚀
2022, Nationwide
US Notify, a federal government technology platform that helps US agencies overcome privacy and compliance barriers to communicating with the public via SMS and email, has launched from TTS’s 10x accelerator. The platform is designed to address government barriers to adoption of commercial tools for critical comms channels, particularly SMS. Over four months, I led a tech team that brought US Notify from a concept to a pilotable platform-as-a-service prototype for TTS. I served as lead engineer and assembled the team that brought the platform to life on cloud.gov. I was also responsible for evaluating applicable open source technologies, such as the excellent, user-centered work done by the UK Government Digital Service that allowed us to leap-frog into high-value, real-world testing. After demoing for experts such as Benefits Data Trust, the 10x team handed US Notify to the TTS Benefits Studio for intensive testing and further development alongside real-world users, beginning with US benefits agencies.
Impactive’s mobile app white-labeled as Vote Joe for the Biden Campaign 🎉
2019-20, Nationwide
Impactive recently scored a big win. Our technology platform was white-labeled as the Vote Joe app and was the centerpiece of the Biden Campaign’s 50-state, $100,000,000+ digital organizing campaign, providing mission-critical digital services to millions of people for both the 2019 primary and 2020 general campaigns. Our platform became especially relevant during the unprecedented challenge of getting out the vote during a pandemic. The Impactive-branded version of our app and platform was used by wide-range of both partisan and non-partisan NGOs, including Vote.org, VoteAmerica, Planned Parenthood, and presidential primary candidates, including current vice-president, Kamala Harris.
Largest-ever study of friend-to-friend voter mobilization
2018-20, Cambridge
During the midterm election cycle in 2018, as Head of Product at Impactive, I was responsible for the experimental design of a randomized controlled trial with tens of thousands of participants testing the effectiveness of our technology’s core premise of voter mobilization via digital messages from friends. We later convened a team of data scientists from Columbia University to co-author a scientific paper. The strength of results demonstrated in the paper led directly to winning multiple bids for presidential campaign contracts the following year.
Harvard Kennedy School consulting for City of Boston
2018, Boston
Technical member of a five person consulting team from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government alongside former US Deputy CTO Nick Sinai, and MPPs Brian Lefler and Stephanie T. Nguyen. The project team helped the City of Boston re-evaluate its procurement strategy in the context of redesigning its public records request technology stack. We left the city with a documented, user- and outcome-centered (rather than process- and feature-centered) procurement framework that has been utilized ever since.
Data Science for Civil Society Fellowship
2017, Cambridge
As the 2017 Harvard Graduate School of Design Service Fellow, I performed intensive user research with civil society organizations and developed public data analysis tools. These tools allow NGOs to easily pull data from government websites and public repositories and deliver it to their constituencies via low-touch, high-engagement channels, such as SMS. The guiding strategy was to deliver frameworks for forensic data analysis and automated notifications that can be deployed and customized with minimal technical volunteer labor.
Smart material for Wyss Institute at HARVARD
2016, Cambridge
A special project for Martin Bechtold and Joanna Aizenberg of the Wyss Institute for Biologically-Inspired Engineering. I designed and prototyped a piezoresistive fabric which is capable of transmitting its shape in high-fidelity via bluetooth using fully-woven sensors. I also wrote the analytical software, which uses a dynamic bayesian network to produce accurate, latency-free shape prediction.
Big Data for Social Good keynote talk at HVG Smart Data Conference
2016, Budapest
Fulbright OpenLab Civic Tech Workshop Series
2015, Budapest
As a Fulbright Fellow for the 2015-16 academic year, I founded OpenLab Public Design Lab, a space for coaching and mentoring civic tech prototyping in collaboration with FabLab Budapest and Central European University. OpenLab is a small, flexible design learning and digital fabrication space operating out of FabLab Budapest in Budapest, Hungary. OpenLab connects students, community organizers, journalists and academics with the community at large in a space that focuses on fostering artistic, technological and civic progress through design thinking and rapid prototyping.
Big Data x Public Health: Mapping health check-ins in Hong Kong & Shenzhen
2015, in collaboration with Mass Design Group and Danil Nagy
A pilot project for MASS Design’s research group and using a multi-billion record Sina Weibo dataset collected by Prof. Danil Nagy of Columbia University. I wrote a piece of interactive software that allows users to visualize the “destressing” of a geographic network of healthcare providers based on GPS check-ins at home and while getting care.
Enterprise tech transformation at SEIU
2009-14, Portland, Denver, Washington DC
At SEIU from 2009-2014, I helped a complex bureaucracy, operating in a highly-regulated environment, transform its approach to technology. I led a change management and capacity-building process at the organization. I was responsible for convening senior leadership stakeholders to identify gaps in the current technology portfolio and strategy. I ultimately led the organization’s first in-house engineering effort, consisting of a multi-year overhaul of the organization’s core financial and membership management data systems. I led a cross-functional team and had full responsibility for planning, budget, risk management, architecture design, user research and engineering management across the entire software development life cycle. The new data system increased gross revenue by 8% in its first year and was later adopted by locals in other parts of the country.