My entire career has been spent in the blurry lines between spaces, as a bridge and translator between disciplines and industries.
I have studied and worked at the nexus of technology, design, and the public interest for nearly 20 years — originally in the context of international development, but for the past decade more domestically in the delivery of public services.
My primary and full-time role is as Managing Chair of the Georgetown Initiative on Tech & Society — a whole-of-campus effort to create novel approaches for interdisciplinary collaboration, research, and education. Outside of that role, I am focused on building capacity in public institutions, and exploring the question: how might we better equip policymakers (and/or institutions) with the skills and knowledge they need to make more effective decisions related to technology?
BRIDGING ACADEMIA + POLICY: I am a founding Advisory Board member of the Public Tech Leadership Collaborative—a collective of scholars and researchers, and government leaders committed to addressing the social and cultural implications of data and technology. We create private spaces for policymakers to explore the rough edges of emerging or ambiguous questions / challenges. I also write In Plain Language—a newsletter that demystifies digital technology for a policy audience.
TEACHING: I teach two courses at the McCourt School for Public Policy. One on Public Interest Technology (syllabus here), and one on Human-Centered Design and Public Policy (syllabus here).
DESIGNING CRASH-COURSES: Digital Fundamentals, Digital Fundamentals for Government (a partnership between the Beeck Center + apolitical). I’m also working with Data & Society on a new pilot course that blends digital product with STS concepts.
Outside of Georgetown, I host a podcast with my alma mater (William & Mary), and am an Associate Editor at a new international peer reviewed journal that aims to cultivate discussion and constructive debate around science, technology, innovation, policy, and the global south.
How did I get here?
I studied government and international affairs, and my career began in international development where I designed and implemented programs for women in the Middle East—specifically in the Gulf. As an early adopter, I pulled emerging digital [consumer] technology into my programs and quickly noticed that it was clearly not designed for the people or context I was working in. That observation drew me to technology, where in pursuit of understanding how design/product decisions are made, I took on roles as a product manager.
After several years in product, I had an opportunity to bring my product skills into government. From 2013 - 2018 I worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs and the White House to modernize the way the federal government delivers services to the public. From co-founding the first agency-level team of the U.S. Digital Service and modernizing the Veterans application for healthcare, to piloting and scaling the Human-Centered Design methodology with an intrepid team at the VA Center for Innovation and serving as Senior Policy Advisor the U.S. Chief Technology Officer at the White House, I experienced the role technology plays in the delivery of public policy. Or more accurately: the degree to which technology is a dependency of public policy.
Now I find myself coming what feels like full circle—bringing my technologist muscles to academia where I am grateful to have an opportunity to create truly interdisciplinary spaces, programs, and curricula that allow us to explore and understand the multidimensional questions that technology presents.