USDR leverages a network of pro bono technical expertise to address common, systemic challenges facing public servants.
We believe that modern and resilient technology applied in the public interest can deliver people-centered services at the speed of need.
We operate with humility and deep respect for our partners, aiming to leave them better equipped to deliver services and support to millions of people.
As of May 2023, USDR has partnered with almost 300 government and nonprofit partners on nearly 400 projects, impacting more than 42 million people across 38 states and territories. We've built a dedicated community of over 8,000 pro bono specialists driven to serve in a time of need.
About U.S. Digital Response
U.S. Digital Response (USDR) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that helps governments, nonprofits, and public entities respond quickly to critical public needs.
Our vision
To meet the needs of the public, we accelerate government’s collective ability to adopt the best that technology has to offer.
What we do
Our values
We work in the public interest
Our pro bono team members volunteer their time and expertise. Our Data and Software Guidelines promote openness and accessibility.
We work with humility and respect
We recognize the unique constraints and stresses of public sector work and find solutions that will work within our partners’ requirements.
We observe a code of conduct
USDR staff and volunteers sign a Volunteer Oath. They are asked to step away from projects if they do not act in a way aligned with our values.
Meet the team
Staff
Aditya Sridhar
Economic Stability Product Engineer
Aditya is a product engineer for USDR’s economic stability program. Previously, he served as a Tech lead at Check working to simplify payroll.
Alex Allain
CTO and Co-Founder
Alex oversees the development of technological tools, automation, and infrastructure at USDR. Alex most recently served as a Director of Engineering at Dropbox.
Amanda Rucker
Marketing and Communications Manager
Amanda leads the communication and marketing strategy at USDR. She has a deep history working with nonprofits and education organizations to help develop their messaging, define their brand, and connect with their audiences.
Amy Meng
Program Manager, Digital Delivery
Amy is a program manager working with the Digital Delivery team to scale and operationalize USDR capabilities. She was previously Associate Director of Delivery Management at Truss, a civic tech consultancy.
Claire Valdivia
Program Manager, Federal Grants
Claire is a program manager working to scale products and operations for USDR’s federal grants portfolio. They bring experience as a people-focused technical project manager, most recently focused on building operations in the philanthropy space.
Emily Barlow
Business Operations Manager and Co-Founder
Emily oversees our Rapid Response portfolio of projects and previously acted as our Operations and Tools Team Lead. Emily was mostly recently at Apple, where she worked as an Engineering Program Manager for next-generation display hardware.
Hillary Hartley
CEO
As USDR’s CEO, Hillary sets the strategic vision for the organization and helps oversee all operations. Hillary most recently was the Chief Digital and Data Officer and Deputy Minister for the provincial government in Ontario, Canada.
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Jenny Woo
Volunteer Talent Operations Manager
Jenny supports talent and operations on the Volunteers Team at USDR. She leans on her experiences in operations and organizational psychology within the nonprofit, tech, and L&D spaces to build equitable and sustainable systems.
Jessica Watson
Chief Experience Officer and Co-Founder
Jessica leads the people power of USDR from volunteer staffing and support to HR and also supports our Economic Stability Program. Jessica is a product design leader who was most recently a Director of Product Design at Facebook.
Jide Ehimika
Technical Product Manager in Residence, Elections Team
Jide is a technical product manager working with partners to build tools required to run modern, efficient, and trustworthy elections. He has over a decade experience in helping teams build tools and processes to transform their organizations.
Kevin Miller
Product Engineer Elections Program
Kevin is a product engineer for USDR’s Elections Program. A web developer with over a decade of experience in the California State University system, he most recently led the website team at The COVID Tracking Project.
Krista Canellakis
Digital Delivery Program Lead
Krista leads USDR’s Digital Delivery Program. Previously, she served as Deputy Secretary, General Services for the State of California and Chief Innovation Officer for the City and County of San Francisco.
Kristen Eberlin
Volunteers Team Lead
Kristen oversees and fosters the volunteer experience at USDR. Kristen is a product and operations leader who most recently served as the Chief Operating Officer for Setmore.
Lindsey Wilson
Elections Program Co-Lead
Lindsey co-leads USDR’s Elections Program. An experienced technologist, Lindsey most recently served as Executive Director and Co-Founder at Unloop, a nonprofit social enterprise and software development agency.
Lynn Constabile
Elections Engagement Manager
With over 20 years’ experience in Elections Administration, Lynn most recently served as the Elections Director in Yavapai County, Arizona.
Madel Leal
Language Access UX Researcher
Madel is the Language Access UX Researcher for the Unemployment Insurance Program. She leverages her experiences as a design strategist, researcher, and facilitator-of-systems change, to build more equitable service delivery.
Maia Kaufman
Hiring Coordinator
Maia is the hiring coordinator at USDR. She has almost ten years of experience in management and leadership in the arts, most recently at Bard College and the School of Visual Arts.
Marcie Chin
Product Lead, Unemployment Insurance
Marcie is a Product Lead for the Unemployment Insurance Program, specializing in strategy, UX research, and language access. She believes that the application of equity-centered design and ethical technology creates value for all people and systems.
Melissa House
Partner Engineer Elections Program
Melissa is the lead engineer for the Poll Workers project in USDR’s Elections Program. Melissa spent most of her career at Apple, where she she was most recently a Director in the apple.com team.
Mindy Huang
Product Manager, Federal Funding Tools
Mindy leads product management for our Federal Funding Tools under the Economic Stability Program. Previously, she worked at Google as a product manager, engineer, and internal founder. Her mission is to leverage technology for the good of humanity.
Pari Sabety
Economic Stability Program Advisor
Pari ensures that our federal grants reporting is aligned with our partners’ needs. Pari has more than 25 years of experience as a CFO in government and higher education, and served as a cabinet member and senior executive staff to two governors.
Priya Garg
Elections Program Co-Lead
Priya co-leads USDR’s Elections Program, which is building a digital infrastructure for American elections. An experienced technologist and product manager, she most recently developed innovative shopping experiences at Amazon.
Rebecca Heywood
Governments Team Lead
Rebecca currently leads the Governments Team. She was most recently the Director of Performance and Process Improvement at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, and she previously served in several roles with the City of New York.
Ruben Espejel
Fundraising and Development Manager
Ruben manages an existing pipeline of donors and finds new philanthropic funding opportunities among individuals and foundations. He most recently managed the major gifts donor stewardship program at PIH Health.
Ruth Ashurst
Head of People Operations
Ruth has spent her career leading the People functions of various technology and mission-driven organizations. She believes that businesses do best when they care for their people, enabling them to do their best work and thrive in all aspects of life
Saad Asad
Product Marketing Manager
Saad leads product marketing at USDR, where he collaborates across the organization on marketing strategies. Previously, Saad focused on product marketing at multiple early-stage startups, consulting, and volunteered with a global health non-profit.
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Stig Parfrey
User Research Operations Lead
Stig is the User Research Operations Lead at USDR, where he is responsible for growing and strengthening the user research practice. His most recent role was Sr Research Operations Manager at Affirm.
Tina Walha
Chief Partnerships Officer
Tina oversees efforts to grow USDR’s impact with government and nonprofit partners. Tina most recently served as Director of Innovation & Performance for the City of Seattle and previously worked as a policy advisor for NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
Truman Cranor
Product Engineer Elections Program
Truman most recently served as an engineer on Airbnb's listing compliance team, building tools and features to help users navigate a complex global tapestry of regulations.
Tyler Hendrickson
Tech Lead, Economic Stability Program
Tyler is the technical lead for the Economic Stability Program. He is a technology leader and architect with experience at early-stage startups and large enterprises, and was most recently a software executive in the healthcare industry.
Waldo Jaquith
Government Delivery Manager
Waldo advises the UI team on how to effectively meet our partners' needs. He previously served as Senior Advisor to the Administrator at the U.S. General Services Administration.
Alumni
Alyssa Levitz
Former Technologist-in-Residence
Alyssa is a product manager. She was formerly USDR’s Technologist-in-Residence for unemployment insurance.
Aylin Oncel
Legal and Development Lead
Aylin oversaw legal and development at USDR. Former legal counsel at Stripe, she most recently started and led Stripe’s Social Impact and Community Engagement program.
Christina Roberts
Former Engineering Lead
Christina served as our Engineering Lead, contributing to USDR’s internal product portfolio and building tools for USDR’s initiatives. Christina was previously an Engineering Manager at Oracle.
Cori Zarek
Advisor
Cori Zarek is the Deputy Administrator at the U.S. Digital Service. She formerly served as the Executive Director at Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation and was the U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer.
Diana Wang
Former Health Data Technologist-in-Residence
Diana was the Product Manager for USDR’s Health Data Program. Previously, Diana focused on policy impact evaluation, data products, and personalization at Airbnb.
Elham Ali
Former Health Technologist-In-Residence
Elham was the design and research lead for USDR’s Health Data program, with more than 9 years of experience in mixed-methods research and UX design. Elham worked in HIV informatics and substance use disorder with New York State and ICAP at Columbia.
Jan Overgoor
Former Health Technologist-in-Residence
Jan was the Data Lead for the Health Program. He recently obtained his PhD in computational social science from Stanford University, and before that he was a data scientist at Airbnb.
Jessica Cole
Interim CEO and Co-Founder
Jessica served as the interim CEO of USDR and previously oversaw partnerships, marketing, and communications. She was a fellow at the Aspen Institute’s Tech Policy Hub and Head of Innovation and Economic Development for the City of Walnut Creek.
Jessica MacLeod
Co-Founder
Jessica is the Director of Digital Services and Open Development at the City of San Rafael. Formerly, she was the head of Customer Success at Socrata and a Policy Analyst at the Center for Global Development.
Jessie Posilkin
Former Economic Stability Program Lead
Jessie oversaw the portfolio of USDR projects supporting economic stability, including unemployment insurance and rent relief. Jessie was most recently a Program Manager at Nava, where she led the team implementing a new state social benefit.
M Valentine
People Experience
M leads the people experience team at USDR. M is a seasoned HR executive and has led the people function for numerous small to large size companies.
Max Kramer
Product Manager, Rapid Response Program
Max serves as the product manager for our Rapid Response Program. Prior to joining USDR, he helped lead the San Francisco–Marin Food Bank’s COVID-19 response efforts. He’s also worked at Atlassian, Trello, and Fog Creek Software.
Raphael Lee
Economic Stability Design Lead and Co-Founder
Raph is a product designer and researcher at USDR. Previously, he managed partner projects and started the Health Program. Raph has led product engineering, data science, infrastructure, IT, and security teams at Lob and Airbnb.
Raylene Yung
Former CEO and Co-Founder
Raylene co-founded USDR and served as the organization’s Chief Executive Officer. She currently directs the Tech Modernization Fund at the General Services Administration.
Rob Brackett
Engineer
Rob is an engineer on our Tools Team and was formerly the Engineering Lead for our Health Data Program. He’s an experienced civic technologist who recently worked with the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative.
Robert Martin
Engineer-in-Residence
Robert is USDR’s Engineer-in-Residence for the Rapid Response Program. He brings 10 years of experience in the public sector, and was previously a Senior Software Engineer at the City of Philadelphia where he worked on civic data tools.
Ryan Panchadsaram
Advisor
Ryan Panchadsaram joined Kleiner Perkins in 2016. He served as the U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer during the Obama Administration.
Sunita Ram
Designer, Rapid Response Program
Sunita is a user experience designer working in our Rapid Response Program. Previously, she led hybrid teams through digital design in the fields of education, technology, e-commerce, and healthcare.
Board of Directors
Avni Shah
Board of Directors
Avni Shah has 20 years of experience building products and teams across consumer and education industries. Most recently, she served as VP/GM for Google for Education, and she currently sits on the Board of Directors for Women in Product.
Janette Fong
Board of Directors & Co-Founder
Janette co-founded USDR and led the Projects Team. She was previously a Product Manager at Lyft and Director of Product at LendUp.
Jennifer Pahlka
Board of Directors Chair
Jennifer Pahlka is the founder and former executive director of Code for America. She served as the U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2013 to 2014.
John Bailey
Board of Directors
John is an advisor to philanthropies and investors and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Previously, he served in several senior policy roles within the Bush Administration.
Looking for a career in civic tech?
U.S. Digital Response is hiring professionals to address challenges with our partners, understand the needs of communities and constituents, and find or develop tools to deliver critical services to the people who need them.
Our organization has doubled in the last year in response to the need, and we are on track for similar growth through 2022. Every USDR community member shapes our work and our culture. We are looking for team members who will join important conversations about how our organization can continue to do the most good at the greatest scale.
Our organization has doubled in the last year in response to the need, and we are on track for similar growth through 2022. Every USDR community member shapes our work and our culture. We are looking for team members who will join important conversations about how our organization can continue to do the most good at the greatest scale.