Where have I worked? What have I done?
Here’s a little bit about what I’ve done at my different jobs
Click here to view my resume
Freeosk, inc. - data analyst
Currently, I’m working as a data analyst at Freeosk, Inc. in the great city of Chicago. Freeosk is a marketing analytics company that works with grocery brands and retailers to to give customers a more personalized and exciting marketing experience - free stuff! My day to day right now looks like creating reports with KPIs from programs we ran, taking deeper dives into the data when requests come in from the client / sales team for specific insights, and building up tools to help increase efficiency throughout the whole process. It’s a great place to work full of fun and smart people, and I feel like I’ve learned so much in my time here so far!
Tools and skills used frequently: SQL, Python, BigQuery, Hive, Excel, Tableau, project management, presenting, organization, communication, critical and creative thinking
Algorithms + Society - EDUCATIONAL CONTENT CREATOR
In my final semester of college, I was able to take a class with Sarita Schoenebeck called Algorithms and Society, where we covered the potential harms and impacts of technology on communities, focusing on how bias and discrimination can seep into algorithms - something people often (incorrectly) assume to be impartial. As COVID hit and classes were shut down, Dr. Shoenebeck assembled a group of graduating students who had taken the class with the goal of creating educational materials for anyone to easily learn about algorithmic bias.
My role was to research topics surrounding algorithmic bias and boil those big technical ideas down into something easily consumable - each of which was then voiced over and turned into a short, animated video. For each potential topic, I gathered relevant research articles, created learning goals and discussion questions, and wrote scripts for the videos. I did this for eight different topics: an intro to algorithmic bias, a vocabulary lesson, voting and politics, marketing and advertising, privacy, recognition technologies, Twitter and white supremacy, and TikTok and racial bias.
Four of those made it through the full process before the project came to an end, and the videos can be found here!
Awareness of this sort of bias within technical solutions and the recognition that technology is not always a good answer to a problem is crucial, and I was thrilled to be able to work on this project.
Tools and skills used frequently: Writing, communicating technical ideas to a non-technical audience, critical and creative thinking
University of Michigan - instructional aide
Senior year of college, I worked as an IA for a class I had taken the previous year - Web Design, Development, and Accessibility, taught by the wonderful Colleen van Lent. The class itself was focused on the fundamentals of web dev (HTML and CSS) coming from the perspective of accessibility. The goal was to ensure people understood how to create things for others to use so that anyone could use it, regardless of each user’s individual abilities. My role revolved around answering questions during lectures and discussions, as well as grading assignments and helping people debug their code in office hours. I loved being able to help with this class, and I hope that students remember the lessons they learned about accessibility as they go out and design things in the real world.
Tools and skills used frequently: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, accessibility, communication, teaching
United states department of defense - summer intern
“It’s classified. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you” (where are my Top Gun fans at?!). A little exaggerated, yes - but there’s not an overwhelming amount I can really say about this job. Imagine sitting in a secret windowless basement, trying to write code with no internet access and you’ll get the idea. See my resume for the pre-approved bullet points!
However, I can tell you about some of the cool, non-work related things I got to experience during my summer in DC:
The Pentagon has a Taco Bell - I ate a beefy 5 layer burrito there for lunch next to a four-star general once.
Also in the pentagon, deep in the basement, there’s a big pink flamingo on the wall. No idea why - it was really hard to find. There’s also a purple water fountain!
CIA headquarters has a gift shop that sells little kids toys and Vera Bradley purses (seems weird?). There are also some museums in there - one has Bin Laden’s AK-47 on display, which was pretty wild to see.
The State Department has a little used book store in basement where diplomats and whatnot donate books they took or bought abroad. I bought cool little mug from Zimbabwe there and like four Hillary Clinton memoirs. I actually also saw the Secretary of State that day (he waved at me)!
Tools and skills used frequently: Python, Spark, Hadoop, Market Research, Neural Networks, Computer Vision, Program Management, Acquisition
University of Michigan - Research Assistant
In 2018, I was lucky enough to join the Interaction Ecologies Group at University of Michigan. Under the direction of Mark W. Newman and Shriti Raj, I was able to help research how providing teens with Type 1 Diabetes with an easy way to view and make sense of the data they have to constantly collect (blood sugar levels, insulin doses, etc.) can positively affect their diabetes management, leading to better self-care. I was thrilled to be able to take part in writing a paper, which was then submitted to the 2019 CHI conference, where it received an honorable mention for best paper.
Check out the paper here!
"My blood sugar is higher on the weekends": Finding a Role for Context and Context-Awareness in the Design of Health Self-Management Technology. Shriti Raj, Kelsey Toporski, Ashley Garrity, Joyce M. Lee, Mark W. Newman. Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019). 2019.
Tools and skills used frequently: Writing, qualitative coding
various high school jobs
I worked a couple small jobs before college - I sorted clothes in a second hand clothing store for kids, I served hotdogs at a ball park, I sold fruit at farmers markets, etc.
I think the most important thing these jobs taught me was how to relate quickly to others and meet them where they’re at to create positive experiences - whether that’s asking someone how there day has been, saying you like their shirt, or just offering a smile. There are always difficult people in jobs like these, but I think if you can get those little moments of shared kindness it makes it much more enjoyable for everyone involved.
Tools and skills used frequently: Patience!
volunteering
I’ve been fortunate enough to volunteer at a variety of places so far in my life - food banks, animal shelters, summer camps - the works. I’ve had two volunteering experiences that really stood out to me though: being a teaching assistant at the West Michigan Refugee Education Center (REC), and being a mentor for the Tech Scholars program at the New-York Historical Society (N-YHS).
As a teaching assistant at the REC, I worked with 3rd-5th graders who had been in the US for less than a year. The goal was the get them used to a school environment and comfortable with their math and English skills before they were thrown into the school system in the fall. It was an incredible experience to see these kids make friends, learn new things, and really just have fun.
As a mentor for the Tech Scholars program, I was able to help young girls build a website on women’s history from scratch. We learned HTML and CSS, and I was able to help them work through debugging their code, as well as answer any questions they had about college, work, or just being a woman in tech in general. It’s a great feeling to see someone’s face light up when they solve a problem they’ve been stuck on, and I was happy to be able to help out.