Margo Kulkarni

• Lived Experience Research: Pioneered innovative person-centered user research for the nation's first 911-dispatched mediation service in Dayton, Ohio. Developed trauma-informed research protocols, recruited participants, and conducted surveys and interviews. Translated insights from community members into concrete service improvements.
• Advisory Committee Member: Transforming First Response Through Non-Police, Community Safety Response Programs: A Peer-Reviewed and Grey Literature Scoping Review (PI: Therese Todd, Policing Project, NYU School of Law)
• Presentations: Community Response Evaluation Subgroup (Gathering Participant Feedback, Aug 2025); Advancing the Field of Alternative Response 2025 Convening (Field Mediation: Toolkit and Scenarios-Based Training, May 2025)

• Program Development: Led a $1.2 million, 0-1 initiative to create consent-focused triage and dispatch of 988-connected mobile crisis services serving the needs of residents across 4 Maryland counties. Managed team of 10 consultants through research, design and launch planning, delivering project on-time and under budget.
• Best Practices Research: Led research and training to address key challenges in alternative response program development. Identified gaps in service design, including civilian de-escalation training, consent and transparency, and support for unhoused clients and LGBTQIA+ youth.
• Communication: Presented recommendations for diverting behavioral-health focused calls from 911 to 988 at a state-wide conference for all‬ local behavioral health authorities across Maryland.‬
• Funder Partnerships: Built strategic partnerships with funders & government clients, turning project success into two additional state-level contracts & helping secure $750K in multi-stage grants from the AAA-ICDR Foundation.
• Evaluation: Guided‬ ‭development of a person-centered evaluation framework to evaluate a non-police behavioral health mobile response team in California. Provided‬ ‭recommendations and reports for presentations to county/state oversight committees and‬ ‭community advisory boards.

My work focused on providing technical assistance and data tools at a philanthropy that helped educators in 300+ schools use data to better support their students. It involved deep cross-functional collaboration with school leaders, non-profit partners, engineering teams and leadership to ensure tools met real needs.

• Project Management: Managed cross-functional team of 6 data scientists & data engineers on rapidly spun-up project to create critical dashboards to support the decision making of school leaders during the ever-changing COVID back-to-school season.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Revitalized stalled org-level initiative to build success metrics for teachers; successfully aligned leadership around new vision & launched actionable, user-tested product features after 2-year deadlock.
• Research & Equity: Worked on a team of data scientists to assess how well the educational platform served the needs of students of color and students in high poverty schools.

• Leadership: Launched new data science team, establishing team goals, processes and quarterly roadmaps, as well as professional development and work product of 4 data scientists.
• User Research: Led mixed-methods research (data analysis, surveys, user interviews) to understand factors influencing professional users' growth & retention. Findings led to major pivot in company's strategy for these users.

I was the first data hire at a 50-person startup focused on supporting small businesses getting started with digital tools.

• Strategy: Worked directly with the CEO on presentations to the board, conducting analysis to inform strategic planning.
• Collaboration: Partnered with every department to use data-driven analysis to address key strategic challenges, including target audience refinement, product design, and marketing. Mentored team members interested in developing data skills.

I was the first employee at a startup focused on easy-to-use products that improve the lives of people with hearing loss.

• Product Management: Acted as interim product manager, shepherding mission-oriented startup from launch to improvement.
• Data-Informed Product Strategy: Built data infrastructure & product event tracking from scratch; worked with Design & UXR to conduct focus groups and data analysis to identify user pain points and prioritize product improvements.

• User Experience: Worked with Student Achievement Partners, an education nonprofit, to improve digital tools for teachers.
• Data Engineering: Built custom economic forecasting models & data pipelines for startup client.