About

Stephanie is an expert human-centered designer, strategist, keynote speaker, teacher, and change-maker working to build a better world. Prior to starting Ascendant, Stephanie oversaw a $65M portfolio of innovation programs around the world at Bloomberg Philanthropies, served as the Director of the first design Innovation Lab in the U.S. Federal Government (Lab@OPM), and helped build Booz Allen Hamilton's human-centered design practice.

Stephanie has diverse experience building impact through program, service, and UX design-based innovation projects in the public, private, and non-profit sectors, has helped build a culture of innovation in multiple organizations, and led the development and delivery of human-centered design and equity-centered innovation curriculum and training to over 7,500 public sector staff in national and local governments around the world. She also serves as an executive coach to organizational leaders.

She is an adjunct faculty member at IIT's Institute of Design and a frequent guest lecturer at leading academic institutions including Harvard University, Columbia University, Duke University, and Cornell Tech University. She holds a Masters Degree in Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, a Practitioner's Certificate in Design Thinking from the Austin Center for Design, and a Bachelor's Degree from Boston College in Sociology and Studio Arts.

More of Stephanie

Interested in reading more about Stephanies work? Download this paper that explores the growth and impact of using design in city government and best practices when introducing it into city hall to tackle complex civic sector challenges.

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