May 17, 2021

Namrata Kolla, MPA ’19

“[As an intern with the City of Seattle’s Innovation and Performance team], I got to combine data analysis, performance evaluation, and design-thinking in amazing ways to help develop solutions for housing assistance, fire departments’ performance evaluation, parking tickets, organic waste, and youth economic opportunity. I learned so much not only technically, but also in understanding what the barriers are to truly innovating in the government space, why those barriers exist, and how to get around them.

“Since graduating, I’ve been able to build on those experiences as a user engagement and research analyst on the Skylight team at Vulcan, which provides technology to help combat illegal fishing and improve maritime security. Understanding the challenges of working in the public and nonprofit sector has helped me be better at onboarding users to our product, who are primarily public and nonprofit employees. Additionally, taking classes like Economics and Social Enterprises helps me better understand how a hybrid philanthropic organization like Vulcan can make an impact toward a highly fought-over common pool resource like the global oceans.”