about.html

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layout: about
title: About
description: "Michelle Hertzfeld is a UX designer, strategist, and team director with extensive experience making government digital services usable, effective, and efficient."
permalink: /about/
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                <h1>Footsteps in the sands of time</h1>
                <p>Highschool yearbook editor! And so the journey to layout, technology, and communication begins...</p>
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                <h1>Maps and deserts</h1>
                <p>I went to the University of Arizona and worked at the <a href="http://snre.arizona.edu/facilities/arsc">Arizona Remote Sensing Center</a>. We made online mapping tools to aid land management and ran outreach programs to help non-techies use them (aka, Geospatial Extension).</p>
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                <h1>Alternative A, B, or C?</h1>
                <p>I worked as an environmental planner at the URS Corporation. We analyzed environmental decision alternatives and helped people understand what this would mean for them.</p>
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                <h1>And now, in Chinese</h1>
                <p>My graduate work is in Chinese environmental policy (ask me about Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia drylands management sometime). A great way to practice conveying information succinctly yet clearly is by learning another language! 我也会讲普通话 ^_^</p>
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                <h1>Be my satellite</h1>
                <p>Science communication was the name of the game at the <a href="http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/">National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Satellite and Information Service</a>. Here, I worked on international and interagency data sharing as well as general digital communications strategy.</p>
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                <h1>Technology innovation</h1>
                <p>I was a <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows">Presidential Innovation Fellow</a> at the <a href="http://www.doi.gov/">Department of the Interior</a> working on making public data more accessible and understandable. Check out the <a href="https://useiti.doi.gov/">U.S. Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative</a>, which is part of an international effort to promote open and accountable management of natural resources.<p>
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                <h1>Good enough for government</h1>
                <p>I helped start <a href="https://18f.gsa.gov/">18F</a>, a new office inside the <a href="https://www.gsa.gov/">General Services Administration</a> that provides technology and design services to other parts of the U.S. government. They're bringing modern, efficient, user-centered services to an agency near you!</p>
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                <h1>The design of tomorrow, today</h1>
                <p>I was an Experience Design Director with <a href="http://www.tomorrowpartners.com/">Tomorrow Partners</a>, a design firm based in California. We helped organizations achieve greater impact through design with a people centered design approach that makes teams more effective, customers more receptive, and clients just plain happy.</p>
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                <h1>Decentralized data stewardship</h1>
                <p>I worked on <a href="https://ipfs.io/">IPFS</a> and <a href="https://cluster.ipfs.io/">IPFS Cluster</a>, researching and guiding product direction for what sustainable data stewardship could look like on the decentralized web. IPFS is an open-source network protocol from <a href="https://protocol.ai/">Protocol Labs</a>; I built out their first design team, too.</p>
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                <h1>Look ma, no code!</h1>
                <p>I was Director of Engineering at <a href="https://www.opencities.com/Home">OpenCities</a>, a fast-growing company helping local gov transform their digital citizen experience without code. I supported agile delivery practices across our product team, and on the side, managed our DevSecOps team as well.</p>
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                <h1>Let's go fly a kite</h1>
                <p>I'm happy to say I'm part of the <a href="https://buildkite.com/">Buildkite</a> team, product managering a new tool into the world called <a href="https://buildkite.com/test-analytics">Test Analytics</a> to help engineering teams find and fix problematic tests in their CI pipelines. It's fun, and we talk about pie a lot 😋🥧.</p>
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      <h1>Want all the details?</h1>
      <p><a href="/Hertzfeld_CV_August2021.pdf">Here's my résumé</a> (205 kb pdf), the long version. 😁</p>
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