The Collective

Kate Krontiris is an ethnographer, strategist, and facilitator working to make our civic life more inclusive and meaningful. In the past five years, she has served as a consultant to Google, Facebook, the Knight Foundation, the Omidyar Network, and UNICEF, among others. Kate also served as a consulting user researcher for the U.S. Digital Service within the Executive Office of President Barack Obama. Kate is currently the Co-Director for the Make the Breast Pump Not Suck project, affiliated with the MIT Media Lab and supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. With her colleagues, she is working to catalyze an inclusive and intersectional movement in breastfeeding innovation. Kate is a graduate of Columbia University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. She holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. For the 2015-2018 academic years, Kate was a fellow and then an affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, at Harvard University. She serves on the board of Democracy Works and is a proud alumna of the AmeriCorps National Service Program. Kate lives with her husband David Sengeh and their daughters Nina and Pax in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Jenn Roberts is an educator, facilitator, and mother who brings over 15 years of experience and passion in race and equity work. She began her career in education, teaching 3rd grade in Chicago Public Schools. After teaching she went on to support new teachers in the classroom, develop curriculum for new teacher certification, and train school leaders in best practices in human capital. In 2011 she moved to DC Public Schools, where after managing the creation of a state-of-the-art online training platform for the teacher evaluation system, IMPACT, she helped to lead the DCPS Office of Human Capital in developing the will, skill, and courage to interrupt inequities and create more equitable policies and outcomes for students. As Founder & CEO of Versed Education Group she continues this work by assisting organizations in developing their skill to operate from a place of equity as a habit. She holds a bachelors degree in Psychology from Spelman College, a M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction, and a certification in School, Community and Family collaboration from Johns Hopkins University. She lives in the DC area with her daughter, Nia.

Rebecca Michelson conducts research, builds partnerships, and manages projects that drive innovation for healthcare and democracy. Whether it’s running hackathons for reproductive health, producing games with NGO’s for public engagement, or making journey maps for healthcare technologies- she is driven by a focus on empathy.

Rebecca is a PhD student in the Human-Centered Design and Engineering Department at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Alexis Hope is an artist, designer, and researcher based at the MIT Media Lab. She serves as the Creative Director for the “Make the Breast Pump Not Suck” project, as well as the Creative Director of TEN FWD, a design studio that makes playful, experimental objects and experiences. She is currently finishing a PhD at the MIT Media Lab, focused on helping more people participate in the process of technology design and scientific research. Prior to joining MIT, Alexis led a team to develop a portable, low-cost ultrasound machine alongside midwives and radiologists in Kenya, Uganda, and Seattle. She was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow from 2012 - 2015, and is currently a LEGO Papert Fellow. In her free time, she sings in a band called Calico Beach Party.

Catherine D'Ignazio is a scholar, artist/designer and hacker mama who focuses on feminist technology, data literacy and civic engagement. She has run reproductive justice hackathons, designed global news recommendation systems, created talking and tweeting water quality sculptures, and led walking data visualizations to envision the future of sea level rise. Her forthcoming book from MIT Press, Data Feminism, co-authored with Lauren Klein, charts a course for more ethical and empowering data science practices. Her research at the intersection of technology, design & social change has been published in the Journal of Peer Production, the Journal of Community Informatics, and the proceedings of Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM SIGCHI). D'Ignazio is an assistant professor of Urban Science and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT where she also directs the Data + Feminism Lab.

Whitney Robinson enjoys crafting thoughtful experiences, genuine connections with people, and collaboratively building products with excellence in mind. She started The Renée, a movement catapulting black and brown women onward and upward by using design thinking to approach the myriad issues of maternal health. She is also in the tech scene as a Product Manager for a Bay-area startup, running a Growth squad that builds software for design teams. Her special time is spent eating tacos with her 3 wild kids, camping in her backyard for solace, and cliff jumping with her husband.