Nikki Lee Email & Phone Number

I lead NPL's delivery partnerships, where we collaborate with government and nonprofit organizations to help economically excluded families get better access to public benefits. We're currently focusing heavily on Paid Family and Medical Leave, child care subsidies, and income tax credits. I wear baseball caps more often than anyone else on the team and frequently use the phrase "design-y code-y things" when talking to policy experts.

I supported all Jarvus work on the California Integrated Travel Project (Cal-ITP), making sure that our data services, web development, and strategy teams had what they needed to deliver great outcomes to our state partners and the people they serve. I served as an interim manager for our data services team, where I worked to establish a foundation of clear priorities, individual empowerment, and healthy interpersonal relationships for the team before replacing myself. I also worked closely with our state government clients to create clear, actionable roadmaps to ensure that they got what they needed. Internally, I collaborated with executive leadership to keep the program running smoothly and emotionally supported all of the Phillies fans at Jarvus in the wake of the 2022 World Series.

I transferred to work full time on a cross-disciplinary team focused specifically on the vertical of government run public benefits. As a principal consultant within the team, I operated at a more zoomed out, holistic level to coordinate larger and more complicated projects, working directly with executives to create (and maintain) an overarching strategy for delivering products and transforming their organization. I supported the leads for individual workstreams and delivery efforts by acting as a sounding board, giving them actionable feedback, and helping them get the resources they needed to succeed. I also boosted morale with cat photos and bad jokes.

The same project work as before, but for less time each week, and also I managed a team of six PMs. Miraculously, there were no major complaints.

I joined 18F to help the United States government build and buy better digital services. The bulk of my work focused on improving the infrastructure that supports Medicaid, which provides healthcare for more than 70 million Americans. Key responsibilities included helping state and federal agencies develop their in-house Product Management capabilities and teaching Slack bots to post cat pictures.

I was a PM on the Windows Shell, collaborating with partners in Windows, Office, and Surface to identify and deliver a compelling consumer story for digital pen and ink. I designed the first implementation of the ink intelligence used in Sticky Notes, helped conceptualize the Windows Ink Workspace, and led the feature team that built the Windows Ink sketchpad and screen sketch features. I also led the creation of pen design principles, and worked with the ink platform team to expand them into a comprehensive guide to building great pen experiences that we delivered to app partners. In my time at Microsoft I attended more than 100 meetings involving the word "lunch".

Seattle

Every month I shepherded a group of more than 30 individuals to give grants to Awesome ideas in Seattle. I also coordinated events and oversaw our outreach to the media and other philanthropic organizations in Seattle. My favorite grant was a movie written, filmed, and edited entirely by virtual assistants in India. Sometimes I got to give talks about alternative philanthropy, too.

I was a TA for Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction and Advanced Human-Computer Interaction (including 4 quarters as Head TA). I taught weekly discussion sections, created design studio assignments, and worked directly with up to 10 student teams to give feedback and guide their quarter-long design projects. Several students said that I was "the best TA ever", even after I had already turned in their final grades.

I collaborated with our corporate liaison to define project specifications for conversion of an all-terrain vehicle into a robust drive-by-wire robotics research platform, and then drove implementation within my team. I made sure that engineering subteams were not blocked by process requirements or resource constraints, helped secure a better working space for the project, and kept our corporate sponsor updated. I also worked with one other person to design, fabricate, and install the vehicle's electrical system. My teammates mostly remember that I made them have "feelings time".

Bachelor Of Science, Electrical And Computer Engineering

Master Of Science (M.S.), Human Centered Design And Engineering