The Team Behind Our Team

CivicMakers has always been about community and bringing people together to apply their expertise toward improving public service. We convene different perspectives in our engagements, but also through our partnerships.

There have been many folks, over the years, who have expanded our expertise and extended our capacity. We are grateful for these extended team members – our complementary contractors – who bring a diversity of experience, expertise, approaches, and even geographical location to our projects. It’s incredibly humbling that the work of our small firm resonates with this cadre and caliber of talent, and we want to celebrate and highlight folks who are ‘the team behind our team.’

This week, we held a virtual ‘meet and greet’ with our project contributors. Here’s a little bit about their backgrounds, what brought them to the work of CivicMakers, and what they love most about our collaborations.

Meet Some of our Collaborators

Yeojin J. is our design research intern, currently working on a project with the San Francisco Human Services Agency to co-design a Mobile Benefits Office. Her background is in project management and food systems. She discovered design working with the United States Digital Response (USDR) and has previous experience with the CalFresh program in San Francisco. Yeojin is currently based in Washington, DC and comes to the work of CivicMakers through her previous collaborations with Chris Lezama, our Sr. Design Researcher.

Christina Garcia, our Equity Advisory, is based in Berkeley, California and grew up in San José. She brings a strong background in affordable housing, homelessness and workers rights. Before starting her own consulting firm focused on strategy, inclusive facilitation and learning work, she worked in philanthropy. Christina loves elevating and bringing in equity. She worked with our team on a project this year with Berkeley Public Library to co-create a 5-Year Technology Roadmap. She’s looking forward to doing more of this work, and particularly enjoyed collaborating on an in-person facilitation for the project.

Mena Kamel first joined us to evaluate our Learning Lab program and help us continuously improve the participant experience. With a background in Design from San Francisco State University and currently living in Oakland, California, he came to CivicMakers because acting locally was important to him. He also delivers on this work as a Public Information Specialist with the Alameda County Public Health Department. We’re glad to be working with him again on a design research project with Calbright College where we’re developing a Quality Jobs Framework tailored to student experiences and needs.

Laureen Andalib has just started on a project with us for the City of Pleasanton, where she’s helping to advise on equitable community engagement strategies. She was born and raised in the Mission District in San Francisco, and currently lives in New York City. She recently completed a Master’s in Design with a focus on the public sector, and wants to do more work in the civic design space.

Tom Price was a Fellow in the Workforce Transformation Corps project we led in 2023. He’s based in Visalia, in the ‘middle of the state’ of California, and runs a similar human-centered design firm aptly named Middlestate. After Tom’s experience with the Fellowship, he pivoted the focus on Middlestate to be on ‘work and learn’ communities, and has embedded his design research and strategy work with the Tulare County Workforce Investment Board. As a young and aspirational business, he enjoys learning along with CivicMakers, and made incredible contributions to our project with Berkeley Public Library. (Check out Tom’s Tool Case Study on Interview Strategy)

Katie Strange lives on Vashon Island in Washington. She’s currently working with our team on an Environmental Justice and Safety Element for the City of Berkeley. She loves collaborative governance, working with multiple stakeholders and welcomes the challenge of implementing plans. Having recently obtained her PhD, Katie wants to do more community-engaged research and has enjoyed putting her head together with our team on how we might continuously improve engaging broader communities.

As a small team, we are honored to have other project contributors who enhance our work with a range of perspectives, abilities and living experiences.

There are many more amazing collaborators not featured here, and hopefully many more in our future! Drop us a note if you’re interested in being connected and learning more about our work.