Dhara Shah Email & Phone Number

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Creative and inspiring solutions to improve places for people

Systems of oppression are by design and therefore they can, and must, be redesigned. We’re mobilizing a movement of Young Leaders as Equity Designers, with the support of Design Allies of all ages, to design healthy and racially equitable communities.Responsible for the strategic planning and management of the entire Learning & Education department and staff. Provides customized online and/or face-to-face learning engagements (including public challenges and courses), Equity Design Lecture Series, Equity by Design Immersives, and the managing online community of practice via the Institute of Equitable Design and Justice.

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Chicago, Illinois, United States

JustDesign is a social justice design cooperative that is member-owned, multi-disciplinary, and focused on the public-interest. We value: a rights-based framework, an anti-oppressive lens, and open access to resources. Our members are engineers, architects, designers, urban planners, educators, & more. We aim to collaborate with environmental justice communities, advocates, and activists to address immoral and oppressive issues. We hope that in prioritizing those who have been ignored by mainstream design firms and disproportionately harmed by oppressive institutions, we can restore power and voice to those communities and thus transform the design industry.We design for peace, change, and justice.

New York, New York, United States

Consultant to Sunnyside Shines Business Improvement District (BID) in Sunnyside, Queens to understand how the BID can be accountable to the needs of immigrant and PoC small business owners and entrepreneurs and engaged the residential community. My projects fell into three categories: 1. Impact Assessment: Understand the impact the BID has made in Sunnyside, Queens through primary and secondary research methods. Facilitating co-design processes to align operations and process with their values of equity. Worked alongside the BID and directly affected stakeholders to frame research studies, create customized research methods, then synthesize results. Findings were presented in the forms of workshops to create strategies for operational changes. Additionally, created a custom equity-centered workshop to understand the misalignments between values and operations and unlock creativity to design new programs that centered equity and shifting power to low income immigrant small business owners. 2. Community Building: Created a community advisory committee of residents to be involved in decisions made by the BID that would impact the general neighborhood. Authored orientation documents, visioning documents, facilitated the recruitment and on-boarding process. Co-designed cultural events, placemaking programs, and economic equity programs with the newly formed Community Advisory Committee. 3. Access Design: Worked alongside immigrant owned small businesses at risk of displacement to create deeper access to resources by the City and State. Worked 1:1 with individual immigrant business owners to manage issues with the city, connect to additional resources, and resolve issues related to evictions.

Chicago, Il

Planned and conducted usability research studies to evaluate products through out the new product development process. Performed risk management assessments and strategies by applying principles of human factors engineering. Managed recruitment, study design, budgets, and timelines for usability evaluations. Conducted ethnography and contextual inquiry to uncover unmet needs and inform design strategy. Managed client relationships, and proposal development and timelines. Authored reports and managed communication with client to ensure smooth implementation of findings.

Lake Forest, Illinois

Lake Forest, Il

I perform development engineering activities for consumable medical device products. Part of my role is to work on cross-functional teams to perform design verification activities per the design controls procedures. My activities include developing design verification plans, developing device specifications, coordinating with the testing labs to request resources to perform testing, create test methods and write protocols to execute testing, and write reports for the Design History File. Additionally, I work with the core team to quickly resolve issues, perform root cause analysis, and escalate decisions to management if necessary.

Lake Forest, Il

- Supervised 2 shifts of test engineers to perform protocol and work requests that support R&D pipeline projects.- Developed training protocols and procedures to train and on-board over 12 new employees- Facilitated resource management for long term planning and day-to-day activities for over 15 projects - Developed mechanisms to assign resources, communicate issues, and escalate problems- Re-organized the laboratory working environment to boost productivity and equipment access and minimize clutter.- Implemented and standardized GDP documents for laboratory notebook documentation. - Developed and implemented standard operating procedures to increase the efficiency of day to day work activities.In addition to the activities related to being a lab supervisor I also:- Wrote protocols and reports to support 510(k) submissions to the FDA- Led core team stand ups to track weekly progress of tasks and to help escalate issues - Ensured material and sample availability to help facilitate the testing to support submissions

Lake Forest, Il

• Evaluated existing test methods and developed ways to improve efficiency and throughput• Coordinated execution activities including supply ordering, sample preparation, equipment procurement...• Designed and executed test methods to boost the efficiency and quality of tests adhering to Design Control requirements.• Developed detailed protocols to execute design verification testing based on ISO standards and design inputs. • Trained and organized teams of test engineers to perform testing on a high priority design verification project. • Used project management principles to develop progress and tracking charts to improve upwards communications and help achieve project milestones.

Engineers Without Borders is a non-for-profit organization strives to help improve the quality of life in developing communities by partnering with communities and other non-for-profits to develop infrastructure projects. The Great Lakes Region consists of 2,000 members and 70 high preforming student and professional chapters of Engineers Without Borders. The President leads the Regional Steering Committee which consists of a Vice-President, Treasurer, Communications Chair, and 7 State Representatives, one for each state within the Region. The Region strives to bring together the connections and experiences of Engineers Without Borders- USA to help strengthen and better our relationships with communities abroad. This is done through a series of regional initiatives such as document sharing, monthly correspondences between chapters, and an increased mentorship focus between experienced professionals and students. The President also participates on the Council of Regional President (CORP) which consists of the presidents from each of the 7 regions. The CORP works within the region to generate feedback and improve bottom up learning and growth within the organization.

• Designed and built an automated CPR chest compression device for a Murine Model of cardiac studies using principles of electrical engineering and programming micro-controllers.• Assisted in the development of assays to extract an eNOS protein and characterize molecular reactions during cardiac arrest

Master Of Fine Arts - Mfa, Design For Social Innovation

Bachelor'S Degree, Biomedical Engineering | Cell And Tissue Engineering

Activities and Societies: Engineers Without Borders, Student Government Association, Leadership Academy, Kappa Phi Delta, Millenium Campus.