JenStrickland.design listening for the right “it”
before we build it right

Resume

Education

  1. Master’s in Public Administration, current student
    Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs, Remote
    Certificates of Advanced Study in Data Science, Conflict and Collaboration, Disability Studies
  2. Bachelor’s of Art in Applied Art
    University of Southern Maine, Portland, Maine
    Concentration in painting and photography; Previous majors: International Affairs, Political Science, Cultural Anthropology, Foreign Languages, Computer Science, Math
  3. Certificate in Problem Space Research
    Indi Young Advanced Training

Work

  1. 04/2021–present. Senior Human-Centered Engineer, Human Centered AI. McLean, VA, and remote.
    The MITRE Corporation, a non-profit operating federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs).
    MITRE Impacts
    • Sought-out influential thought leadership across MITRE and internationally for human centered technology innovation, engineering, and system thinking, working with agencies for effective public service delivery with accessibility, information technology, and technology ethics, developed technical reports and assured Section 508 compliance, developed resources for decision support and national security: IRS AI Assurance, AI Governance Toolkit, AI Assurance Knowledge Base, NSF AI-Scholarship for Service.
    • Influenced $2.5 million of new IRS Legislative Analysis & Readiness business development and organizational strategy for Section 508 program approaches, design system modernization, defining targets, training, and instructional materials.
    • Develop and lead strategic direction for qualitative and quantitative analysis to develop taxpayer engagement strategies leading to 17% increase in visits to IRS.gov and 25% increase in user satisfaction for use of IRS Online Account by improving interaction: digital, live-chat, correspondence.
    • Introduced actionable accessibility acquisitions language for a $524 million AI pension modernization for the US Department of Veterans Affairs government procurement.
    • Led qualitative research projects for a variety of federal agencies leading to more open communication and collaboration, safer international security, FDA review protocols for medical devices, more inclusive and accessible services for the IRS and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), improved processes and guidance for taxation of digital assets, and identified strategic priorities for AI adoption.
    • Stewarded a federal agency’s USWDS adoption as a design systems SME in effective use of HTML, CSS, accessibility, web performance, web components, and usable, supportive system documentation.
    • Resolved conflict, facilitated collaboration, and improved data sharing and organizational culture amongst diverse stakeholders for the Conflict Observatory.
    • Spearheaded strategic research and development of National Science Foundation Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE-AI) AI-SFS Academic and Institutional Criteria Framework v0.1 in accordance with the CHIPS and Science Act 4a and 4b requirements, including focus group collaborative workshops, environmental scans, and qualitative interviews with AI and emerging technology subject matter experts across academia, industry, and government.
    • Designed, led, and executed usability research and increased mobile usability for the AI Assurance Knowledge Base and AI Governance toolkit, addressing responsive front-end development bugs and delivering actionable insights to enhance adoption, usability, and effectiveness for diverse institutions, including University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and the CHAI model.
    • Advocacy on issues for Veterans, disability, and mental health by lobbying members of Congress through the John P. Mayhugh Foundation.
  2. 08/2019–122021. Senior UX Designer, Accessibility Specialist. Washington, DC, and remote.
    Ad Hoc, LLC, born of the HealthCare.gov rescue, a digital agency helping government better serve people.
    Ad Hoc Impacts
    • Led accessibility and strategic organizational leadership for cross-functional engineering teams delivering Veteran-facing services and applications as part of the large-scale VA.gov digital transformation.
    • Introduced stakeholders to human centered design while facilitating discovery research, requirements gathering and defining the product roadmap to meet The Mission Act expansion of benefits for Veterans.
    • Elevated accessibility of Veteran services and applications by taking on role of motivated product manager alongside assigned role, to plan, and monitor KPIs for status reports, develop requirements, technical assistance, championing strategy, and building accessibility expertise across teams.
    • Cultivated leadership champions to spark a strategic vision organizational change for the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs Digital Experience Product Office, that adopted an “Accessibility First” strategic direction, defining requirements and business processes for teams to not only meet, but exceed, Section 508 and influence organizational culture.
    • Influenced design practice to inspire a strategic, accessibility-minded culture change through empathetic training and workflows, elevation of branding, coordination of accessibility usability studies, ensuring consistency across shipping sprints, performance management, introducing research with Veterans with disabilities, fostering empathy.
    • Introduced human centered accessibility design best practices to develop training, technical documentation, design reviews, responses to RFPs, content management system, and accessibility auditing processes to ensure continuous improvement in a fast-paced, complex, highly-matrixed environment.
    • Nurtured cross-functional teams to meet and exceed accessibility regulations outlined in Section 508 (WCAG 2.0), Authority to Operate, and Plain Writing Act, while expanding to relevant WCAG 2.1 & 2.2 success criteria to meet identified needs of the Veteran population.
  3. 07/2018–07/2019. Design Lead. Remote.
    Fidelity Investments, privately held investment management firm generating $18.2 billion in revenues.
    Fidelity, 2018–2019 Impacts
    • Pivoted from senior key contributor for UX design and development to lead researcher to guide researchers and gather data on a worldwide scale, and orchestrating strategy and synthesis of qualitative data and quantitative test results for strategic vision, product development, core infrastructure, operations, and change management for a Microsoft 365 cloud-based workplace digital transformation and global marketing integrated campaigns.
    • Oversee design and implementation for a suite of technical tools with executive leadership awareness and alignment of functional design needs by identifying priority user needs and influencers, conducting field research via remote / in-person protocols, framing research results and data analysis in compelling journey maps paired with an insight roadmap to influence respectful tech partnerships.
    • Co-created with users an information architecture for the corporate intranet incorporating associates using their mental models, through quantitative and qualitative research methods, usability/user testing, and competitive analysis.
  4. 08–12/2017. Senior UX Designer (contract). Washington, DC.
    FEMA Floodsmart.gov, official website of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).
    FEMA Impacts
    • Optimized strategic design for UX and accessibility, applied a U.S. Web Design System Drupal CMS theme, human centered process, and detail-oriented attention to listen to the voice of influencers.
    • Introduced and led a human centered product design process in an ad agency by guiding client discovery through qualitative research and quantitative data analysis, fostering user empathy, defining plain language taxonomy, developing evidence-based journey maps, responsive wireframes and mockups, as well as persuasive storytelling presentation to resonate customer insights for executive leadership decision making.
    • Nurtured the development of design practice with training and mentorship for user research, user experience design, UI standards, “pair programming”-influenced design teamwork, facilitating design workshops, responsive web, rapid prototyping, market research, and benchmarking metrics for the UX impact of accessibility and web performance.
  5. 12/2016–03/2017. Senior UX / Product Designer. Cambridge, MA.
    Akamai Technologies, a content delivery network (CDN) with revenues of $2.5 billion & 7,650 employees credited with serving 15%+ of all web traffic.
    Akamai Impacts
    • Led customer-centric product vision for a performance analytics tools proof of concept by defining scope on a global scale, documenting technical requirements, interacting with customers, market analysis, product strategy roadmap, exploring vendor impact, field operations, evaluating value proposition, definition of measures, monitoring metrics, data visualization, business intelligence, collaborating with stakeholders.
    • 95% improvement in design/dev process turnaround time by applying resourceful workflows, unleashing creative remote collaboration, defining lifecycle, solving problems, and responsive prototypes using flexible, innovative CSS / HTML / JavaScript progressive enhancement techniques to optimize customer experience.
  6. 10/2015–06/2016. Senior Product Designer, Eliassen contract. Watertown, MA.
    Sabre Hospitality Solutions, the leading travel tech company generating $3.6 billion in annual revenue and employer of 10,000.
    Sabre Impacts
    • Steered a cross-functional team executing the responsive redesign of a complex call center app. Introduced collaborative product development and testing processes to mediate compromises in an environment unaccustomed to user experience research and design thinking.
    • Elevated performance and enhanced software engineering by championing the transition to modern frameworks (React, Foundation), Agile software development, and aligned design and discovery sprints.
    • Cultivated an organizational shift through: facilitating design thinking workshops, user testing, definition of measures, KPIs, monitoring metrics, and an optimized workflow to an iterative, user-centered design program with guests and agents.
  7. 08/2013–04/2015. Design Lead. Boston, MA.
    Fidelity Investments, privately held investment management firm generating $18.2 billion in revenues.
    Fidelity, 2013–2015 Impacts
    • Engaged on technology innovation team for cutting edge responsive UI design and development skills for accessible iterative proof of concept; contributed to the responsive style guide establishing the design system and digital asset management; evolved to hands-on principal UX design lead for a five-person creative team and point of contact for multiple clients, coordinating with the design director to communicate status and product vision across the company.
    • 75% boost in mobile engagement by consolidating a data dense fixed user-interface into a responsive Fidelity.com to optimize customer experience, using measures definition and evaluation.
    • Introduced a human-centered mindset as design lead for a global engineering team by bridging cultural differences, differing time zones, and methodologies associated with partners located in China, India, and Salt Lake City, UT, and documenting well-defined technical specifications paired with storytelling and coded examples to clarify the thinking behind requirements, to ensure alignment on outcomes.
    • Transformed a project one year behind schedule to the most viewed resource and improved customer loyalty by designing a flexible, innovative user-interface solution and replacing waterfall with Lean methodology co-created with customers in the usability testing lab.
  8. 06/2012–03/2013. Senior UX/UI Designer/Developer. Cambridge, MA.
    Stealth Start-up, a startup incubator nurturing profitability via teams of engineers, analysts, & entrepreneurs.
    Start-up Impacts
    • Led R&&D for product strategy and SaaS web services strategy with an entrepreneurial spirit, aimed at acquisition. Led inclusive recruitment efforts for hybrid designer-developers.
    • $500,000 gain in daily product sales and 100% improvement in value per arrival attained by informing algorithmic rules and marketing strategies using quantitative research methods, data science, and incremental retrofit experiments to convert a high-performing ($1 million/day) app into a responsive web app.
    • Expedited identification of bugs before product launch via design, procurement, engineering of a mobile device lab with reusable QA resources and troubleshooting for iOS / Android.
  9. 06/1995–10/2011. Senior Consultant in Design, Development. Boston, MA.
    Aquent, Senior design consultant for the global workforce solutions company that helps businesses find talent, technology, and services. Placed with clients: Delta Dental of Virginia, Harvard University, Houghton Mifflin Publishing, Pearson Publishing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Putnam Investments, OneBeacon Insurance, Charles River Associates.
  10. 1995–2021. Founder, Principal, Designer, Developer. Cambridge, MA, remote.
    Ink Pixels Paper / Jen Strickland design. Clients: Partners In Health, State of Massachusetts, Harvard’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, Boston Area Rape Crisis Center.