/fellowship2023

Presentations from the 2023 Fellowship.

Introduction

The Coding it Forward Fellowship is empowering the next generation of technology leaders to innovate at the intersections of technology and public service in all levels of government offices across the United States. Fellows work across software engineering, data, design, and product to deliver policy, improve systems, and strengthen products on behalf of the American people.

We are grateful for host office partners who provided our Fellows with the opportunity to serve and grow this summer:

Federal Offices:

State & Local Offices:

Meet the 92 young technologists who served in our seventh cohort: Introducing the 2023 Coding it Forward Fellows

This repository features the slides that Fellows presented during their respective end-of-summer presentations at their host offices. View a recording of Coding it Forward’s virtual demo day.

About the Fellows

Kindly note that if a Fellow's biography does not have a link, their work is not publicly available. If a Fellow's biography contains a link without the actual PDF uploaded, their presentation is still under review for release.

Alam Zishan is a rising junior at Stony Brook University studying Mathematics and Computer Science. This summer, he worked at the U.S. Census Bureau's Commodity Flow Survey team and worked on streamlining the data correction process. His work allowed the team to correct ~100 million rows of data in large batches. | Presentation

Ali Thursland is a rising senior at Duke University studying Computer Science and Statistics. This summer, Ali worked at the New York City Department of City Planning on the Data Engineering Team, alongside Dea Bardhoshi, to develop a dataset with a spatialized view of historical capital spending in NYC and turn that work into a data pipeline. Her work this summer resulted in the first dataset of its kind, mapping 25% of capital projects since 2010 to geographic locations. This dataset will be used to develop a per capita metric for creating more equitable capital investment strategies. | Presentation

Amanda Murray is a former teacher and a current data science graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. This summer, she worked at the U.S. Census Bureau's Education Finance Branch to build a public-facing visualization that would make the public education financial data at the country, state, and school district levels more easily accessible for all stakeholders. | Presentation

Amey Bansod is a Master's student at Northeastern University pursuing a degree in Information Systems, specializing in blockchain technology. He worked as a Full-Stack Engineering Fellow at Arapahoe County to develop an Android App proof of concept for the Public Works and Development Department to increase the safety and security of inspectors and consumers. His work resulted in a successful and ready-to-implement POC, which is scalable to other departments and easily deployable on iOS and the web. | Presentation

Andrew Liu is a Masters student at New York University studying Computer Science. This summer, he worked at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) on the digital services team serving the Great Boston Area, developing new and existing full-stack web apps and developing accessible design and tech infrastructure practices. His work has spanned 5 different projects facing audiences ranging from the general public, and internal municipal planners to legislators. | Presentation

Andrew Shaw is an undergraduate at the University of Washington studying computer science and philosophy. He served as a full-stack software engineering fellow with Baltimore Digital Services, where he designed and built Baltimore OEM GIS Center, a unified mapping platform to enhance situational awareness for the Office of Emergency Management. He also supported the Mayor's Office in developing a citywide inventory of government AI tools and the Office of Equity and Civil Rights updating their public equity dashboard to UX standards. | Presentation

Andrew Zhao is a rising sophomore at Harvard University studying Computer Science. This summer, he worked at the General Services Administration on the USA.gov team alongside Lillian Zhao, helping the team design, program, and optimize an automated regression testing tool for the USA.gov website. His work removed the need for manual regression testing, saving a few hours from each deployment of USA.gov. | Presentation

Anna Schoeny is a recent graduate from Tulane University with a degree in Computer Science and Sociology. This summer, she worked at the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Corrections Unit analyzing state-level Justice Expenditure and Employment Extracts series microdata. She created a semi-automated coding scheme to categorize disparate justice system financial data from 2011-2020, enabling cross-state comparisons for future analyses. | Presentation

Anthony Costarelli is a rising junior at Olin College of Engineering studying mathematics. This summer, Anthony worked at the Bureau of Justice Statistics for the LEIBS and LES units, creating visualization dashboards for LEMAS data. Anthony's work helped make analyzing LEMAS data more accessible.

Ashley Sun is a recent graduate of Pomona College with a B.A. in Computer Science. This summer, she worked at the New Jersey Office of Innovation on the Unemployment Insurance Modernization team, contributing software engineering work to the official status page for NJ residents to check their unemployment benefits application status (~20,000 daily active users). Her projects included surfacing actionable alerts for issues blocking people's claims and adding support for professional Spanish translations across the web app (also known as i18n). | Presentation

Asia Paige is a recent graduate from the University of Michigan. This summer, she worked as a Data Analytics Fellow at the Bureau of Justice Statistics' Victimization Statistics Unit.

Ayush Kumar is a Research Scientist at New York University and an alumnus of the University of Georgia. This summer, he worked at the US Census Bureau as a Data Engineering Fellow in the Statistics Modernization Branch alongside Sarah Dzwil. Their project built extract-transform-load (ETL) pipelines for over 1.3 million administrative records from the SEC and IRS. Dozens of downstream stakeholders will use the final databases to validate survey data and improve Census data products. | Presentation

Brandon Wallace is a recent graduate from Carnegie Mellon with a master's degree in Public Policy. This summer, he supported the Strategic and Portfolio Management Office, developing a digital and physical tool to guide the Census Bureau's data offerings covering Puerto Rico. His work was designed to showcase what is available and what is possible to inform and inspire stakeholders in making data-led decisions.

Chanteria Milner (she/her) is a second-year graduate student at the University of Chicago pursuing her Master's in Computational Analysis and Public Policy. This summer, Chanteria partnered with Gurman Dhaliwal as a Data Engineering fellow in the Criminal Justice Statistics branch of the U.S. Census Bureau, where they worked to migrate historical criminal justice employment and expenditure data into a centralized database. Chanteria is passionate about using technological advances to increase equitable access to resources for underserved communities and hopes to pursue a career in civic technology and data-informed policymaking. In her free time, Chanteria likes to read science fiction, knit sweaters, and watch movies with her cat, Clover. | Presentation

Charles Burr is a recent graduate of Seattle University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude with two degrees in Design and Marketing. This summer, he is designing user experiences for over 2.0 million users on Apprenticeship.gov, promoting registered apprenticeships across federal government agencies. Charles is passionate about creating debt-free pathways to high-paying jobs to promote equity across the USA in an age of rising student debt. His previous experience spans startup internships, serving as president of Seattle University's student-run business Motmot Coffee, and leading UX Design for an open-source web tool in the qualitative coding space funded by the National Science Foundation to reduce bias in studies on venerable groups. | Presentation | Courtney Brousseau ‘19 Community Builder Awardee

Connie Hong is a rising junior at Stanford University pursuing a B.S. in Mathematical and Computational Sciences. She was a Data Science Fellow under the U.S. Census Bureau's Economic Directorate this summer. Throughout the fellowship, she worked with her co-fellow, Lara Karacasu, to create an OCR pipeline that uses techniques from computer vision, natural language processing, and text capture to transform scanned geographical records from the 1970s into digital spreadsheets. When linked with the larger efforts of the Decennial Census Digitization and Linkage project, this project will help build one of the first longitudinal datasets of the U.S. population. | Presentation

Corrina Calanoc is a second-year Master's student studying Data Science and Analytics at Georgetown University. This summer, she worked at the U.S. Census Bureau on the New Product R&D team in the Economics Indicator Division on a web scraper that validated e-commerce. Her work will result in more accurate e-commerce revenue numbers reported by the Census. | Presentation | Courtney Brousseau ‘19 Community Builder Awardee

Daniel Won recently graduated from UC Berkeley with a dual degree in B.S. Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and B.A. Cognitive Science. This summer, he worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics to design and develop the review functions on a streamlined web interface for linking data records between the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) and the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) survey. His work provides a simplified platform for analysts to link records between the two data sources efficiently. In particular, with its more efficient data comparisons and automated data visualizations tracking the match quality, the new web interface significantly reduces the average time analysts spend on data linkage assignments. | Presentation

David Yao is an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland. This summer, he worked as a Back-End Software Engineering Fellow at the GSA Technology Transformation Services for Search.gov.

Dea Bardhoshi is a recent graduate from the University of California, Berkeley, with a Bachelor’s degree in Data Science and an emphasis in Geospatial Information and Technology. This summer, she worked at the NYC Department of City Planning on the Data Engineering team alongside Ali Thursland, working on a brand-new data product to map the city’s capital historical spending. Their work aims to provide a data-driven analytical tool to understand spatial and temporal investment patterns and to inform future investment plans. | Presentation

Divya Satrawada recently graduated from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, with a B.S. in Computer Science and a minor in Philosophy. This summer, she worked at the Department of Labor in the Data Analytics and Strategic Planning division, developing a natural language processing tool that extracts geographic and organization-specific data from federal grant applications to provide demographic insights on the applicant pool and recipients of Employment and Training Administration grant awards. This tool supported the administration’s strategic plan to prioritize equity and support underserved communities.

Eric Kellenberger is a UX researcher and certified accessibility professional completing an M.S. in Human Factors Engineering at San Jose State University. This summer, he worked at the General Services Administration, testing GSA.gov's primary use case, per diem, and providing design recommendations. His work resulted in changes expected to save 82,000 labor hours annually. | Presentation

Esther Suh recently graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in Cognitive Science and Psychology. This summer, she was a Design Fellow at the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in the Publication and Dissemination Unit, supporting the unit's communication strategy to promote BJS research and data collection efforts. Her work included building visual identity assets and prototypes for internal use, infographics, and public-facing materials for the unit's dissemination channels.

Federico Dominguez is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, studying for a master's in Computational Analysis and Public Policy. This summer, he worked on automating the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory for the City of Long Beach. He developed an application that extracts and cleans data from six websites in real time. | [Presentation](Federico_Dominguez Molina.pdf)

Gaelan Steele is an undergraduate student at the University of St. Andrews. This summer, she worked as a Full-Stack Software Engineering Fellow at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Digital Services. | Presentation

Gracie Gallagher is a recent graduate from San José State University with an M.S. degree in Human Factors, emphasis in Human-Computer Interaction. This summer, she worked at the Arapahoe County Department of Information Technology on a user research project exploring employee knowledge and attitudes surrounding digital accessibility and identifying the next steps for executing a county-wide digital accessibility plan. Her research will be presented to the board of directors to make the case for hiring additional support and fostering a culture of inclusivity within the organization. | Presentation

Gurman Dhaliwal (she/her) is a rising senior at the University of California, San Diego, pursuing her B.S. in Data Science. This summer, Gurman partnered with Chanteria Milner as a Data Engineering fellow in the Criminal Justice Statistics branch of the U.S. Census Bureau, where they automated report generation for the Bureau of Justice Statistics and migrated 40+ years of criminal justice data into a centralized database. In her free time, Gurman enjoys running, reading, and going to the beach! | Presentation

Hannah Kim is a Computer Science and Statistics undergraduate at Harvard University. This summer, she worked for the U.S. Census Bureau alongside Data Science Fellow Noah Baker on integrating subnational methods into the Demographic Analysis Population Projection Software (DAPPS). Her work resulted in an original design and UI implementation for the Subnational Toolkit, a feature that will aid Census Analysts, International Governments, or anyone interested in demography. | Presentation

Hayley Barton is an MBA/MPP dual degree student at Duke University studying technology policy. This summer, she worked with the HHS Office of the Chief Data Officer to prepare the public release version of the 2023 HHS Data Strategy. She also supported key data culture and hiring initiatives by creating and building buy-in for an inventory of data-related fellowships and internships and supporting the review of 89 submissions across HHS for the inaugural data culture awards program.

Husain Ghadiali is a graduate student at Boston University studying for a Master's in Business Analytics. This summer, he worked at the Office of Innovation and Technology of Philadelphia as an Analyst alongside Siddharth Purohit. He worked towards improving the stakeholder departments' data collection and analytics processes. His work resulted in a better understanding of analytics for the stakeholders and foundational knowledge of analytics tools used in the organization. | Presentation"

Ishaan Gupta is a recent graduate from Case Western Reserve University. This summer, he worked as a Full-Stack Software Engineering Fellow at GSA's Federal Acquisition Services IT Category Team.

Ishika Ray is a 5th year graduate student at the University of Washington, studying experimental psychology and data science. This summer, she worked at Arapahoe County within the Business Relationship division of the IT department. Her work consolidated 25+ artifacts into a single IT service catalog, which paved the way for county-wide application rationalization efforts. | Presentation

Jackie Chistolini is graduating in December 2023 with a degree in statistics from Colby College. This summer, she worked at the USDA in the Local and Regional Foods Division, helping to redesign a Tableau informational navigator on the outcomes of local food grants under the LAMP program. The dashboard will be launched on the USDA website for public use alongside the 2023 grant recipient announcements in the fall.

Jackie Glasheen is a 2nd year student in the University of Chicago’s M.S. in Computational Analytics and Public Policy program. This summer, she worked at the U.S. Census Bureau as a Data Science Fellow, supporting the effort to develop cannabis industry data products. Using a custom probabilistic linkage algorithm, she identified 20,000 cannabis-related businesses in Census data. Before this fellowship, Jackie earned her B.A. in economics from Boston College and worked as an economist and senior data analyst.

Jackson Moody is a rising sophomore at Harvard University studying Computer Science. This summer, he worked in the General Service Administration's Office of Customer Experience, where he helped develop a new template for Digital.gov's long-form content. Ultimately, his work allowed over 200 pages of new content to be published online. Going forward, his template will also enable the migration of major subsites such as pra.digital.gov and plainlanguage.gov onto the Digital.gov platform. | Presentation

Jacob Depinet is a Senior at Ohio State University majoring in Data Analytics and minoring in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. This summer, they worked at the U.S. Census Bureau in the Data Collection and Methodology Research Branch (DCMRB), where they developed and utilized structural methods to conduct a meta-analysis on the research done over the past three fiscal years within the branch. Jacob also assessed the meta-analysis capabilities of the novel Census Bureau Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) against Open AI and traditional NVivo software. | Presentation

Jake Murray is a second year Masters student in statistics at the University of Washington. This summer, he worked alongside Natraj Vairavan to create an interactive dashboard to analyze the diversity of firm owners receiving Paycheck Protection Program loans. Jake and Natraj's work will become public-facing work published on the SBA site.

Jenna Foo recently graduated from Barnard College with a B.A. in Information Science. This summer, she worked on the Digital Services team at the NYC Department of City Planning alongside Julia Zhu, redesigning DCP's public website. Her work resulted in the development of prototypes for the Data and Tools page of the website as well as a detailed user research report, which may be used to inform the next steps of the redesign process.

Jennifer Wang is a junior at Brown University studying Computer Science and International & Public Affairs. This summer, she worked on the Demographics Frames team at the U.S. Census Bureau, analyzing source representation in race and ethnicity data and identifying administrative sources to impute missing values. Her work added over 1.5 million records to the current composite of race and ethnicity data sources.

Jesse Hogan is a rising senior at Brown University studying Architecture. This summer, he worked at the New York City Department of City Planning in the Urban Design office alongside Luca Moynier, designing a web application for the office to better translate 3D models into 2D stories and interfaces. | Presentation

Joel Yap is a career pivoter with a UX Design Certificate and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. This summer, he partnered with Philadelphia Parks and Recreation's (PPR) Strategy and Engagement Division to improve internal communication outcomes. As a UI/UX Design Fellow, he led the design process of an intranet for 1,700+ of its permanent and seasonal staff through user research, journey maps, user stories, information architecture, concept sketches, a landscape analysis, wireframes, low- and high-fidelity prototypes, and usability testing. His work resulted in an intranet MVP, including features for resource-sharing and networking, to address critical user needs and streamline seasonal staff recruitment. Moreover, the intranet gives access to over 1,000 seasonal employees/frontline workers historically excluded from existing internal communication tools, like email and Sharepoint, benefitting the PPR department and the community it serves. | Presentation

Joshua Lazaro is an incoming Ph.D. student at Stanford University studying Biomedical Informatics. This summer, he worked at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on the Office of Enterprise Data and Analytics team. Alongside James Del Aguila and Andrew Tungate, they developed a statistical model better to understand the characteristics and drivers of Medicare Advantage.

Julia Poulson is a rising sophomore at Harvard College studying Government and Computer Science. This summer, she worked at the Census Bureau alongside the International Trade Macro Analysis team to create a first-ever comprehensive and interactive free Census data tool for public use. The tool lets users dynamically view and analyze 13 years of monthly U.S. trade data with U.S. territories through various filters, aggregations, and visualizations.

Julia Zhu is currently a Master's student in Computer Science at Georgia Tech, specializing in Human-Computer Interaction. She worked alongside Jenna Foo this summer at the NYC Department of City Planning, focusing on assisting the interaction designers in the research phase for the website redesign and creating mock-ups for the Data & Tools portion of the site. Her work resulted in high-fidelity mock-ups for what the Data & Tools section could look like, alongside a detailed hand-off log about interactions and components for developers to use as they redesign the website.

Lara Karacasu is a rising senior at Columbia University pursuing a B.S. in Computer Science and a minor in Statistics. This summer, she worked as a Data Engineering Fellow at the U.S. Census Bureau within the Economic Directorate under the Business Development Staff. There, she implemented and assessed strategies for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and automated data capture from the 1970s Block Header Records scans, a historical set of address and geocode listings. Ultimately, her work will support the linkage of geographical information for the Decennial Census Digitization and Linkage Project, which is working to create a large longitudinal data infrastructure covering most of the U.S. population since the 1940s. | Presentation

Lena He is a rising senior at Brown University studying Visual Arts and Psychology. She combines both her majors through graphic design and communications work, something she got to practice during her fellowship at the General Services Administration's Information Technology Category. She worked on multiple projects there, from designing slip sheet mockups to presenting infographics. | Presentation

Lester Dery is a recent Whitworth University graduate with a B.A. in Human-Computer Interaction. This summer, she worked as a UI/UX Design intern at the City of Charlotte Host Office. She worked on three main UX projects with a program manager and developers to improve the UI of a code enforcement app, QCCode for the City of Charlotte code enforcers; redesign the city’s 311 request app to enhance the overall user experience and access to resources for residents; and create wireframes for a Land Development Individual Residential Lot web application that allowed homeowners to draw improvements or projects to their lots, which received positive feedback from stakeholders. | Presentation

Lilian Zhao is a rising sophomore at Purdue University studying Computer Science. This summer, they worked at the GSA on the USAGov team, alongside Andrew Zhao, to design and prototype an automation framework for the official USA.gov site that will serve as the foundation for future regression testing. Their work resulted in over 2 hours of testing being reduced to just a few minutes through ~80 unique test cases being implemented across 45 pages. | Presentation

Luca Moynier is a rising senior at the University of British Columbia studying Cognitive Systems. This summer, he worked at the New York City Department of City Planning at the Urban Design Office alongside Jesse Hogan, building a web application to host interactive 3D models to engage New Yorkers with various urban design topics. | Presentation

Madison Fan is a rising junior at Stanford University studying Design and Computer Science. This summer, she worked as a Design Fellow at the City of Austin's Transportation Department's Data Technology Services. Her fellowship spanned multiple projects: designing and creating usability test materials for a public mobility project viewing platform, conducting user research on an internal data analytics tool, and delivering various design improvements on internal platforms. Her work prepared the mobility project viewer for usability testing, generated research insights on usability pain points of internal tools, and increased staff productivity by improving internal tool usability. Her work also resulted in DTS's decision to involve more design talent in future work. | Presentation

Mahika Calyanakoti is a rising sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying Computer Science with a concentration in Data Science. This summer, she worked at the U.S. Census Bureau on the Demographic Frame team under Jennifer M. Ortman, Anthony Knapp, and Andy Chen to create the Current Vintage table- a snapshot of the metadata in the team's relational database. Using PostgreSQL code, PG Admin 4, and Linux tools like nohup, she was able to create tables. She materialized views in various schemas in the database to provide a quick and efficient overview of the various sources and vintages used by the Demographic Frame. | Presentation

Marcelo Morales recently graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a B.S. in Computer Science. This summer, he worked at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office as a software engineer fellow, where he helped the team improve their continuous integration and development processes. | [Presentation](Marcelo_Morales Valiente.pdf)

Marion Madanguit is a senior at Olin College of Engineering, studying Engineering with a concentration in Technology and Society. Grounded in a commitment to contributing to a more just and equitable world, she has explored roles as a project manager, designer, engineer, and volunteer in non-profit, research, and start-up spaces. This summer, she worked at the City of Boston as a User Research Fellow for the Boston Digital Service. In collaboration with other fellows and departments at the City, she worked to infuse design and user research practices into several ongoing projects, including a landscape analysis of the City’s digital forms, a redesign of a critical form in the marriage registration process, a redesign of a public-facing dashboard for the Green New Deal, and a service blueprint of the permitting and zoning appeals process. | Presentation 1, Presentation 2, Presentation 3

Marivi Sifuentes is a recent graduate from the University of Michigan with an M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction and a B.A. in Sociology. This summer, she worked at the City of New York in the Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity alongside Oskar Lelko, supporting the overhaul of data products reporting on the outcomes of the city's workforce development system and service distribution. Her work led to the development of an inclusive design system and ensured products were accessible to users, including those with visual impairments or screen readers. | Presentation

Mary Chen recently graduated from Yale University, where she studied Political Science and Earth & Planetary Sciences with a certificate in Energy Studies. This summer, she worked at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), investigating the impact of the Emergency Rental Assistance Program on affordable housing in NYC. She also updated user resources for nine HPD datasets published on NYC Open Data.

Meera Kumar is a rising junior at the University of Michigan studying Computer Science with minors in Linguistics and French. This summer, she worked on the Data Science & Analytics team at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, debiasing an AI model across minority groups to find less discriminatory alternatives to AI algorithms employed in the financial sector. Her work helped set precedence for future investigations concerning biased AI models.

Mitsuki Irihara is a first-year Master's student in Applied Statistics for Social Science Research at New York University. This summer, he worked with the City of San José, California, on initiatives to understand park use patterns in collaboration with the Department of Parks, Recreation & Neighborhood Services to ensure equitable park access for all city residents.

Nat Markey is a Yale College student graduating in December 2024 with a B.S. in Statistics and Data Science and a B.A. in Classics. This summer, he worked at GSA in the Office of Customer Experience, organizing survey data into a referenceable inventory and performing data analysis on results from two major surveys of GSA stakeholders. His first project resulted in a working data inventory alongside documentation and strategy to help serve a broader data repository initiative, and his second resulted in hundreds of calculations of statistically significant change in ratings and several new data visualizations used to illustrate findings in briefings to program leadership.

Nate Stringham is a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah studying natural language processing. This summer, he worked for the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program. He worked alongside the operations team to develop new quality assurance tests for the data collection platform. This effort resulted in 3 new tests for use in the data validation process. Unlike the legacy tests, these new tests leverage historical data to flag potential outliers and can be dynamically updated over time.

Natraj Vairavan is a rising junior at the University of California, Berkeley, studying Economics and Statistics. This summer, he worked at the U.S. Census Bureau in the Economic Reimbursable Surveys division to analyze PPP loan recipient diversity data alongside Jake Murray.

Nick LaBerge is a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado Boulder, conducting computational social science research in the Computer Science department. At the U.S. Census Bureau this summer, Nick used administrative records to study the dynamics between self-employment and wage work and how these dynamics vary across demographic groups.

Nicole Avila recently graduated from the University of Chicago with a double major in Computer Science and Media Arts and Design. This summer, she worked at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services at the Open Source team alongside Shweta Kumar and Gaelan Steele. Her work resulted in implementing the student opportunities webpage for the data science role at Human Health Services. Additionally, she worked on designing and implementing the open-source metrics dashboard website that program managers will use at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. | Presentation

Nikhil Sharma is a graduate student in computer science at Johns Hopkins University, working on human-AI interaction and NLP. He worked with the City of Long Beach on a project that used large language models (LLMs) and qualitative and quantitative research to improve the quality and relevance of vendor pitches for Pitch Long Beach! He followed a human-centered design approach that involved creating hypotheses, designing and developing interventions, testing the feasibility and effectiveness, conducting user research, modifying the interventions, proposing a programmatic change, and documenting the results and process. He also addressed the ethical and safety aspects of using AI in government contexts. His work resulted in recommendations, insights, and AI solutions that could improve the program outcomes and impact. | Presentation

Nikita Jha is a rising sophomore at the University of Georgia studying Computer Science and Economics. This summer, she worked at the Center for Enterprise Dissemination in the U.S. Census Bureau, developing a data ingestion pipeline using LLMs and Python. This system aimed to extract valuable data from thousands of unstructured legacy Census documents and convert the data into a usable format for database entry. Through her work, she slashed project processing times by hundreds of hours and boosted data extraction efficiency significantly. | Presentation

Noah Baker is an Epidemiology and Biostatistics MPH graduate from UC Berkeley. This summer, he worked for the U.S. Census Bureau alongside Software Engineering Fellow Hannah Kim, helping develop the R library for the Subnational Toolkit in DAPPS. His work resulted in implementing multiple subnational population projection methodologies within DAPPS that will aid Census analysts, international governments, and academic researchers. | Presentation

Ojasvi Saxena is an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley. This summer, she worked as a Data Engineering Fellow at GSA Federal Acquisition Services' IT Category Team.

Oluseyi Yoloye is a graduate of Towson University with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. Previously, she worked on product teams to improve their external communication and engagement and product marketing strategy and execution. As she navigated her career, she aligned with working in civic technology via the City of Boston’s Department of Innovation and Technology, Boston Digital Service. This year, she worked on the City Registry’s Marriage Intention Form Inclusivity and Usability and the Agilepoint (AGP) Apps Tracking Project for internal and external applications. | Presentation"

Ornella Tchoumie is a recent graduate from the University of California, Berkeley. This summer, she worked as a Product Management Fellow at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Oskar Lelko is a rising Junior at the University of Rochester studying Computer Science and Political Science. This summer, he worked at the NYC Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity alongside Marivi Sifuentes, redesigning NYC's Workforce Data Portal and helping platform one of the City's social service intake apps. His work brought the updated data portal from design mockups to production, delivering reimagined data visualization tools, back-end updates, and new screen reader UX based on in-depth accessibility testing. | Presentation

Pavani Samala recently graduated from George Washington University with her Master's Degree in Data Science. This summer, Pavani worked for the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, devising an automation tool that combined Natural Language Processing and Data Engineering techniques to process data more efficiently from multi-establishment businesses. This tool strives to help expedite the data publishing processes by suggesting schedule numbers, calculating RTE numbers, and providing economists with metric-based data quality checks. | Presentation"

Priyanka Gopi is a Master's student at the University of Central Florida. This summer, she worked as a Data Engineering Fellow at City of Charlotte's Innovation & Technology Department.

Rachel Baker-Ramos is entering her final year in Georgia Tech's M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction program. This summer, she worked as the UX Design Fellow at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, contributing to improvements in the UX of internal platforms. Her work improved internal communication and time efficiency in the asylum process.

Rachel Wang is a rising senior at Stanford University studying Artificial Intelligence. This summer, she worked as a Software Engineering Fellow at the Data and Technology Services team in the Austin Department of Transportation, helping the team solve current development issues. Her work resulted in more than a dozen issues resolved and new code pushed to production for various services that her team hosts. | Presentation

Rosaleen Xiong is a Master's student at Emory University. This summer, she worked as a Product Management Fellow at City of Long Beach's 'Office of Climate Action & Sustainability.

Ryan Gajarawala recently graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in Computer Science & Engineering Sciences (Electrical & Computer Track). This summer, he stepped into civic tech and worked as a Product Fellow at the City of Boston Department of Innovation & Technology on the Boston Digital Service. He worked to improve the City Registry’s Marriage Intention Form’s inclusivity and usability, redesign Boston’s Green New Deal Dashboard for better experience and accessibility, and analyze the current state of permitting and zoning appeals in Boston through a service blueprint. | Presentation 1, Presentation 2, Presentation 3

Ryan Manthy is a senior at Illinois Tech pursuing a co-terminal B.S. in Computer Science and an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering. This summer, he worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a Product Fellow on the InnovationX team. Ryan concentrated on developing novel web content standards using human-centered design frameworks. Additionally, he presented an innovation sprint proposal to promote broader adoption of CMMI's Enhancing Oncology Model (EOM) data elements through CancerX, a public-private partnership developed under the White House's Cancer Moonshot Project.

Sanjana Gunda is a rising junior at Rutgers University studying Business Analytics and Information Technology. This summer, she worked in the Office of Job Corps, where she conducted data analysis needs assessments and provided recommendations and tools for data access and visualization. She used R and Tableau to create a dashboard connecting Job Corps graduate placement data to BLS OEWS occupational wage estimates data to facilitate administrative data-driven decision making. | Presentation

Sarah Dzwil is a rising senior at the University of Rhode Island studying Data Science and Applied Mathematics. This summer, she worked at the US Census Bureau at the Statistics Modernization Branch, alongside Ayush Kumar, building pipelines to bring publicly available 3rd-party data into more accessible databases for analysts. Her work includes a reusable suite of data validation and profiling tools to ensure quality standards across multiple data pipelines spanning 1.3 million administrative records from the IRS and SEC. | Presentation"

Satya Datla is a rising senior at Cornell University studying for a degree in Economics with a minor in Computer Science. He worked on building a web app for the internal usage of a projection dashboard for analysts to complete their reviews more effectively and update the data as necessary. His work resulted in over 30 people using and updating his software, starting within the subsequent one or two projection cycles. | Presentation

Shweta Kumar is an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan. This summer, she worked as a Full-Stack Software Engineering Fellow at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Digital Services. | Presentation

Siddharth Purohit is a graduate student at the University of Washington studying Information Management. This summer, he worked at the City of Philadelphia on the Office of Innovation and Technology team alongside Husain Ghadiali, helping the phila.gov website team to improve their data collection and analysis processes. | Presentation

Suhan Kacholia is a junior at the University of Georgia studying Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence. This summer, he worked at the Department of Health and Human Services, helping the Office of the Chief AI Officer analyze and cluster government AI projects. | Presentation

Summer Long is entering her final year of the M.S. in Computational Analysis and Public Policy at the University of Chicago. She worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Office of Productivity and Technology this summer. She was tasked with designing a solution for analysts that eases the burden of manually generating tens of visualizations that may not make it into a final product. As a result of this request, she created software packaged as an executable that automatically generates visualizations based on user-selected parameters and orders them based on a computed interest metric. This software has a user interface, so it is accessible to analysts without any prior coding experience, and all components were built during the internship. | Presentation

Taft Weber-Kilpack is a graduate student at the Politecnico di Milano, studying Product-Service System Design. Previously, she studied Industrial Design with a minor in Sociology at Georgia Institute of Technology. As a service designer and user researcher (and often with other design skills thrown in), she has worked in a start-up, academic lab, and design consultancy and is now finally exploring the world of civic design. This summer, she worked at the City of Boston’s Digital Services team to redesign an environmental justice dashboard and facilitate a cross-departmental team creating a service blueprint. | Presentation

Vennila Annamalai is a junior at the University of California, Berkeley, studying Statistics and Data Science with concentrations in math and social welfare. This summer, she worked as a Data Engineering Fellow at the City of Baltimore Department of Finance. Her work on the Compensation Model project has provided Baltimore with a framework to help efficiently assess and adjust how much they pay government employees. Additionally, she helped work on a Microsoft Power App that will eventually help automate the budget proposal process. | Presentation

Vivian Wang is a rising junior at Stanford University studying Computer Science & Entrepreneurial Management, a self-designed major. This summer, she worked with the US Department of Health as a Product Fellow to redesign a digital solver community to enhance how innovators and entrepreneurs collaborate and share ideas. Her design idea is dedicated to the ongoing KidneyX Artificial Kidney Prize Challenge, a competition with over $9 million in cash prizes. | Presentation

Wei Liu recently graduated with an M.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington. This summer, he worked at the City of San Jose in the Information Technology Department on a Natural Language Processing project that analyzed the differences in issues submitted by the residents to the City of San Jose before and after the pandemic. His analysis covers over 100,000 reports submitted by San Jose residents in four years. | Presentation

Wren McQueary is a data scientist and software engineer with an M.S. in Computer Science from George Mason University. This summer, she worked at the U.S. Census Bureau on the Business Frame Team, building an end-to-end data pipeline from scratch in Python to convert millions of pages of minimally structured PDF files into formatted database entries, to better inform policymaking and research, enhance data discoverability, and reduce false matches. | Presentation

Xiomara Salazar Flores is a second-year master's student at the University of Chicago studying Computational Analysis and Public Policy. This summer, she worked at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as a Data Science Intern, conducting comprehensive data analyses to understand the impact of technical and policy changes on the outcome of asylum cases. Her work enabled leadership engagement and discussion in retrospectives and feedback regarding the effectiveness and results of these changes.

Yiran Duan is a Ph.D. student at Syracuse University, and her skillset includes data analysis and visualization. During the 10-week fellowship, she audited 2000 special event permit records and visualized the records to show patterns of the fees. | Presentation

Yun Xing is a Master's student at the University of Chicago studying Applied Data Science. This summer, she worked at the City of Baltimore Mayor's Office on the Digital Services Team, where she built executive dashboards for the CAO using data from crime reports, service requests, and fire 911 calls. Additionally, she created a map for multi-agency inspections in the Brooklyn neighborhood as part of an emergency response to a significant incident that occurred over the summer.

Zoie Huang is a recent graduate from the University of Washington with a Master's degree specializing in Human-Centered Design. This summer, she worked as the UI/UX Design fellow at the Arapahoe County IT department. Her work outcome of the accessibility UI/UX standards is a valuable tool for county employees to produce digital services that residents with disabilities can access the same information as others. Zoie's work will be published on the county's intranet platform, making Arapahoe County an inclusive place to serve all residents. | Presentation