Lucy Saura Email & Phone Number

Cambridge, Massachusetts

My main responsibility was to protect the integrity of the data used in Northshore's Highly Capable Program Eligibility Process. Every year, around 12,000 students from our district participated in this process. Our work produced a massive amount of data that needed to be aggregated and analyzed in the most efficient way possible.Some highlights: - Successfully coordinated the department's transition to a mostly-paperless system.- Developed programs in R and RMarkdown to aggregate and analyze student data, as well as automatically generate 10,000 parametrized score reports. - Designed systems of linked Smartsheet grids to share information with other departments and monitor student progress. - Created clever, zero-cost solutions that drastically reduced data entry errors. - Designed reports and visualization tools (in R Markdown and Tableau) to facilitate conversations with district leadership. - Presented data throughout the year to staff, cabinet-level leaders, and community members.

Bothell, Washington

As the district's behavior specialist, I noticed that our elementary social-emotional program needed a better way to manage their data. The application they were using was inflexible (adjusting a student's class schedule would ruin all the previously collected data) and didn't allow them to quickly identify trends in their behavior data. Within the span of two weeks, I built a solution for the program that is still in use three years later. Teachers only have to enter in raw numerical scores, and the percentages and graphs are updated automatically. The system is highly adaptable to many of the common schedule changes that occur in elementary schools (e.g. half-days and late arrivals). (And it was built in Google Sheets, so it was free!)

Brookline, Ma

I spent a year working as an in-home behavior therapist for the Public Schools of Brookline in Brookline, Massachusetts. My responsibility was to train parents on how to better manage their child’s behaviors at home, and to track the outcomes of the behavior management interventions I used. I found that the children I worked with were extremely motivated by anything with a touchscreen, so I began to use behavior tracking smartphone applications instead of the standard analog versions (e.g. sticker charts). This had a huge impact in my clients’ adherence to their behavior management plans, and it spurred an interest in educational technology that I want to explore further.

Cambridge, Ma

At the Harvard Lab for Developmental Studies, I assisted with three eye-tracking research projects that assessed how adult, infant, and child participants responded to ambiguous sentences and negation. It was a very busy semester – I designed study stimuli in Photoshop, recorded voiceover instructions for participants, ran study sessions, scheduled participants, and networked with local school officials over the phone and at an Autism Speaks event. I also created a database of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in the greater Boston area that future Harvard researchers could utilize.

Southborough, Ma

I taught academic and life skills to boys aged 9-15 in the Staff Intensive Unit, the area of the school that houses students with the highest rates of challenging behavior. At the New England Center for Children, one of my responsibilities was to assemble the quarterly parent newsletter. This newsletter highlighted each students’ academic and behavioral progress. Despite the severity of the behavior problems my students were working to overcome, I managed to find ways to take pictures of each child that highlighted their best qualities, and write stories about their new skills that would make their parents proud. Each issue of the newsletter was met by rave reviews from my supervisors (and more importantly, the parents).

Rhinebeck, Ny

During two summers in college, I worked at Ramapo for Children, a camp in Rhinebeck, NY for children with special needs. (About two-thirds of the campers had autism, and the rest had other emotional/behavioral concerns.) In my second summer, my area’s supervisor had to leave before the last three-week session started. I was asked to assume her responsibilities for the final week of camp. Rather than running activities myself, I would need to take on the tasks of supervising the counselors who were running the activities, ensuring that we had enough materials and personnel present, and communicating with other area leaders to proactively set up a successful environment for our campers. While switching into a leadership role mid-summer was certainly a dramatic change, the session was ultimately a success, and I was formally offered a supervisory role at the end of the summer.

Pullman, Wa

I spent three semesters working for Washington State University’s Psychology 106 program, a longitudinal study that evaluated the efficacy of a behavior management course aimed at WSU underclassmen. The course was taught by research assistants, who also collected data and administered pre- and post-tests. As a research coordinator, I supervised a group of 18 research assistants and trained them on all aspects of their roles – in particular, classroom management, proper data collection techniques, and lesson planning.My most significant contribution to the project was the revision of the course’s teaching manual, a twelve-year-old, 200-page guide that was intended to provide all of the statistics, lesson plans, and instructional materials that the research assistants needed. The manual was not always easy to follow and contained some errors and outdated statistics. My coordinating partner and I received permission to revise the manual, and spent two semesters adding new information and updating lesson plans. All of the new research assistants received our new updated manual to guide them through their first semester.

Master Of Education (M.Ed.), Measurement, Statistics, And Research Design, 4.0

Graduate Certificate, Software Design & Development

Courses Taken: Data Structures and Object-Oriented Programming I & II (C++) Systems Programming (C++) Software Development Processes.

Bachelor Of Science (Bs), Psychology, 3.52

Awards: Deans List, WSU Writing Portfolio Pass with Distinction (awarded to top 10% of undergraduate writers), President's Honor Roll