Experts in their respective fields, the 2017 Hackathon Mentors were a valuable resource to teams as they tackle their challenges. Hackers leveraged their knowledge build a solution that addresses the problem and can be effectively implemented for the greatest impact.
The 2017 Hackathon Team Leads came from a diverse set of professional and personal backgrounds. Each Lead tackled a particular challenge statement they are uniquely passionate about.
Mentors
WALTER GILLIAM, PHD.
Assistant Professor, YALE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, CHILD STUDY CENTER
Walter is the Director of The Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy and Associate Professor of Child Psychiatry and Psychology at the Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine. He is a fellow at Zero to Three and the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) and served as a senior advisor to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).
Hacking Areas: Education, Access to Educational Content
KATIE BURKE
VP of Culture & Experience at Hubspot
Katie oversees HubSpot’s global employment brand to attract top-level talent as the company continues to grow and enter new markets. She creates and delivers the optimal candidate and employee experience for HubSpot’s offices around the world.
During her time at HubSpot, the company has received culture commendations from Entrepreneur, Fortune, The Boston Globe, Glassdoor, and The Boston Business Journal. Katie’s emphasis on a culture of inclusion, diversity, and support has also placed HubSpot on Fortune.com’s “100 Best Workplaces for Women” list.
Kathryn McCoach
Editor and Expert Writer at ASAP Finance
As managing editor and expert writer at ASAP Finance, Kathryn McCoach draws on more than a decade in the financial sector and lending industry to guide people on how to make responsible decisions with their money. Kathryn believes that giving people access to easy-to-understand spending and borrowing advice is key to helping them achieve their financial goals. With a master’s degree in finance and years spent working with clients as a loan officer and financial advisor, Kathryn understands how important education is to direct people to get out of debt, improve bad credit, and gain financial independence.
Loan Agency
Courtney Emerson
Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer, All in Together
Courtney is a Co-Founder of All In Together (AIT), a non-partisan campaign to empower women with the proven tools they need to drive meaningful change. In addition to her role at AIT, Emerson serves as an Advisor to EverwiseWomen, Everwise’s cross-company women’s leadership development program supporting women from over 80 organizations, including Eventbrite, Lyft, Microsoft, Salesforce, Spotify, Squarespace, T-Mobile and Yelp.
Hacking Areas: Hiring Practices, Gender Pay Gap
Yuko Araki
Senior Analytics & Insights Advisor at AARP, MIT Sloan EMBA 2016
Yuko Araki helps organizations transform demographic and social trends into business opportunities that generate positive social impact through data analytics, research and insights. At AARP she is helping tackle the ever present challenges older workers and job seekers continue to face, more than 45 years after the passage of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. She holds an Executive MBA from MIT Sloan, Class of 2016.
Matt Schlenker
Expansion & Implementation Strategy, #HackHarassment, Intel Corporation
Matt is an MBA Candidate at Michigan Ross and an avid gamer! This past summer, Matt interned with the Hack Harassment through the Accelerate Leadership Program at Intel. Founded by Intel, Vox Media, and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, Hack Harassment is a coalition of organizations and individuals who share in the common goal of building a more inclusive and supportive online community. Join the movement at #
Mercedes Delgado
Senior Lecturer and research director, MIT sloan
Mercedes Delgado is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and the Research Director and Research Scientist of the MIT Innovation Initiative Lab for Innovation Science and Policy. Delgado also serves as Senior Associate at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School. Delgado’s research focuses on the relationship between the regional business environment and the performance of firms, regions, and countries.
Beth Livingston
Assistant Professor of Human Resource Studies, ILR School of Cornell University
Beth Livingston is an assistant professor in Human Resource Studies, with teaching interests in HR and Staffing, and research interests in gender, stereotyping, and the management of work and family. Her research covers three overlapping areas of interest: gender and diversity, stereotyping/stigma/discrimination, and the management of work and family.
Rob Avruch
Manager, Client Services, The Raben Group
A leader in the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion practice, Rob works with corporations, foundations, and advocacy groups to develop strategies to ensure their workforces and products represent a diversity of thought and experiences. Most notably, he worked with Airbnb to develop their roadmap to diversity and designed a hidden bias training for their Host Open in Paris. Rob also helps manage the groundbreaking environmental diversity initiative, Green 2.0, which works to educate, advocate, and bring accountability to mainstream environmental organizations to improve diversity and inclusion at senior and management levels.
Whitney Tome
Counsel, The Raben Group & Executive Director, Green 2.0
Whitney has worked with fishermen, environmentalists, advocates, political strategists, government employees, and thought leaders to develop the approach and solutions needed for the problem. Prior to joining the Raben Group, Whitney served as the director of diversity and inclusion at the National Parks Conservation Association where she lead, defined and crafted metrics and measures for the organization’s diversity and inclusion efforts. In addition to serving as Counsel, Whitney is also the executive director for Green 2.0, an initiative to increase the racial diversity of the largest national environmental NGOs, foundations and federal government agencies.
Matthew Darling
VICE PRESIDENT AT IDEAS42
Matthew Darling is a Vice President at ideas42 and Teaching Fellow in Economic Design at Harvard University. He has contributed to ideas42 projects in poverty, health care, early childhood education, financial literacy, mortgage default reduction, climate change, and labor economics. Like all humans, Matt has a limited memory – he might be forgetting a few project domains. Matt graduated from Hampshire College with a self-designed concentration in economics and cognitive science, and from Tufts University with a MS in economics. He has previously worked as a consultant at Kohlberg and Associates, and as a research assistant at the Stanford Neuroeconomics Lab. In his copious free time he enjoys reading, biking and playing ultimate frisbee or board games.
JOSH MARTIN
VICE PRESIDENT AT IDEAS42
Josh Martin is a Vice President at ideas42, responsible for overseeing behavioral science intervention programs in diverse fields from domestic financial aid reform to international livelihoods programs. Prior to joining ideas42, Josh was a policy advisor in Côte d’Ivoire’s Ministry of Planning and Development, having previously held posts at Cordoba Initiative and Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict program and consulting roles at the World Bank, USAID, the National Democratic Institute, and others. His interests include cash transfer programs, financial inclusion, moral finance, conflict dynamics, corruption, political decision-making, and sports both outdoor and indoor (including table tennis in which he is the undisputed, feared and revered champion of the ideas42 office). Josh has a masters from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and speaks Arabic and French.
MARTIN HENSON
BLACK LIVES MATTER ACTIVIST
Team Leads
Allison Bard
MBA CANDIDATE 2017, MIT Sloan
Hacking Interests: Gender, Race Relations
Ursa Bernardic
Visiting Scholar, MIT Sloan Neuroeconomics Lab
Hacking Interests: Gender, Socioeconomic Status
Tanvi Gupta
MBA Candidate 2017, MIT SLOAN
Co-Founder of 'And So She Did'
Hacking Interests: Gender (specifically, Women's Empowerment)
Gabrielle Haddad
MIT Sloan Fellow
Hacking Interests: Hiring Practices
Nithila Jeyakumar
Master's CANDIDATE, MIT SYSTEM DESIGN & MANAGEMENT
Hacking Interests: Gender, Race Relations, Socioeconomic Status, Hiring Practices, Ageism
Victoria Lee
MBA CANDIDATE 2018, MIT SLOAN
Hacking Interests: Gender, Socioeconomic Status, Hiring Practices
Jolly Pradhan
Fellow, MIT System Design & Management
Hacking Interests: Gender, Race Relations, Hiring Practices, Ageism
Aswini Narayana Prasad
Fellow & Research Assistant, MIT
Hacking Interests: Gender, Socioeconomic Status, Hiring Practices, Ageism
Tim Reed
MBA CANDIDATE 2018, MIT SLOAN
Hacking Interests: Race Relations, Hiring Practices
Sebastian Solanilla
MIT Sloan Fellow
Hacking Interests: Hiring Practices
Molly Spector
MBA CANDIDATE 2018, MIT SLOAN
Hacking Interests: Gender, Hiring Practices
Neethi Thomas
MBA CANDIDATE 2018, MIT SLOAN
Insite Fellow
Hacking Interests: Gender, Hiring Practices
Catherine Wright
MBA CANDIDATE 2018, MIT SLOAN
Hacking Interests: Gender, Race Relations, Socioeconomic Status, Hiring Practices, Ageism
NGAIRE UNDERHilL
ANALYST, MIT LINCOLN LABORATORY
Hacking Interests: Gender, Work Practices, Online Bias