We Built a Data Innovation Lab. Here’s Who Makes it Happen.
With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to effect every facet of our daily lives, the CompassRed team wanted to find a way to help. To make that happen, we launched the Delaware Data Innovation Lab (DDIL) with the help of CARES Act funding from New Castle County.
The goal of the DDIL is to tackle COVID adjacent issues from a position of strength in data — topics like housing insecurity, economic stability, and educational equity. All of these are wicked problems. To make real headway on any of these, it requires having the right team.
What does that team look like? It looks diverse. Diverse data skillsets. Diverse lived experiences. Diverse ways of thinking. By bringing these different perspectives together, we can appropriately address the problems.
Our initial group of Fellows is 10 people strong and working on 6 proof-of-concepts. They’re supported by an additional team of data scientists and data engineers paving the way towards success. Meet our Fellows!
Rakhi Agrawal
Rakhi brings her experience as a former secondary math teacher and nonprofit professional to the work that she does at the DDIL. She’s focused on bringing her skillset as a data scientist to educational equity issues, particularly as it relates to declining FAFSA completion in the wake of the pandemic.
Daniel Barlow
In any other year, Dan would currently be teaching math in the Peace Corps. While his placement is delayed due to the pandemic, he’s spending his time focused on how to visualize and share data in augmented and virtual reality. He’s particularly focused on using mobility data as a proof of concept.
Meagan Brackeen
Meagan’s expertise is focused on building narratives and telling stories. She brings a research and grant writing background at the University of Delaware to the DDIL. Now she uses that skillset to help tell the story of housing insecurity and evictions in New Castle County and beyond.
Talla Cisse
Talla’s story is grounded in a deep passion for education. He is a former Teach for America Corps Member who has built his knowledge of educational policy through work at the DE Department of Education, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Harvard Graduate School of Education. He brings his skills as a data analyst to telling the story of declining FAFSA rates.
Sara Gormley
In previous work, Sara has used her skillset as a data analyst to focus on community well-being through projects with the City of Austin and Code for Philly. She continues this work at the DDIL, focused on identifying social determinants of health indicators to better understand Wilmington and the surrounding area.
Hector Maldonado-Reis
A biomedical engineer turned data scientist, Hector brings his expertise in population health to his work at the DDIL. Hector is focused on understanding the relationships between COVID-19 and the eviction moratoria and then using this data to build a narrative about housing insecurity in New Castle County.
Shreshta Naskanti
Having recently graduated with her Masters in Business Analytics from Arizona State University, Shreshta is interested in solving complex challenges with data. She has focused this skillset on identifying social determinants of health indicators across Wilmington.
Jasmine Pham
A recent graduate of Drexel University, Jasmine brings her data analyst skillset to her work. She is particularly interested in how data can be used to help communities thrive. She is focused on visualizing COVID-19 viral load in wastewater as an early warning system to help New Castle County identify potential outbreaks.
Steven Reiss
Steven is a data scientist who leverages his experiences as a digital marketer and entrepreneur in his work. In particular, he is focused on understanding how COVID-19 safety measures — from masks to social distancing — have impacted reviews in the hospitality industry.
Janie Truitt
Janie joins the DDIL bringing a background in program delivery in the banking industry. Since transitioning from banking, she has spent her time focused on the intersection of data and health outcomes. She has used this expertise to help develop a tool to understand the effect of policy measures on COVID-19 viral load in wastewater in New Castle County.
