Heather Flanagan

A product manager and technology professional with a passion for education, usability, and community engagement.

Skills

  • Experienced in working in product-driven environments, working closely with developers and stakeholders to formulate, clarify, and implement ideas into a coherent product vision and strategy.
  • Comfortable with a variety of project management styles, including Agile software development methodologies.
  • Practical, real-world experience developing frontend web applications using HTML, CSS, JavaScript.
  • Knowledgeable in basic development concepts and philosophy; including database architectures (relational and NoSQL variants), infrastructure (AWS), and version control systems.

Work Experience

Billion Oyster Project

New York, NY (3/2016 - Present)

  1. Digital Learning Specialist (7/2017- Present)

  2. Communications and Curriculum Editor (3/2016- 7/2017)

The Billion Oyster Project (BOP) is an ecosystem restoration and education project aimed at restoring one billion live oysters to New York Harbor and engaging hundreds of thousands of school children through restoration-based STEM education programs.

Digital Learning Specialist

Developed and managed an open source data collection and analysis web application that NYC students, teachers, and community scientists use to submit and analyze restoration science data, create curriculum, and present original research. In this capacity, I am responsible for both the overall product vision and strategy as well as implementation. Development is carried out both directly by me (frontend coding and data modelling) and through pro-bono technical talent for backend and operations.

Additionally, I create trainings, curriculum, and educational resources to teach educators the technology side of doing field-based scientific research with their students. I was also a founding member of our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee.

Communications and Curriculum Editor

I trained educators on how to do field-based scientific research with their students, wrote standards-aligned middle school STEM curriculum, and created digital educational resources and content to support Billion Oyster Project’s education-through-restoration work. This included long-form blog posts, readings for students, multimedia how-to guides, a newsletter, a Tumblr, and social media posts.

Brooklyn Historical Society

New York, NY

  1. School Programs Educator (9/2015 - 9/2016)

Designed and lead inquiry-based school tours and afterschool programs at BLDG 92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. These interactive experiences emphasized STEAM, sustainability, and Brooklyn history, focusing on the waterfront and the experiences of female and black workers.

  • Curriculum development: designed the sustainability STEAM program (grades K-5) teaching design/engineering skills and adaptive reuse; revised existing tours; designed curriculum for afterschool programs; edited BHS curriculum kits and guides.

  • Afterschool programs: co-lead the “Teen Thursdays” and “Teen Innovators” programs. Teen Innovators is a program where high school juniors and seniors work to earn paid internships. We took the students on site visits, worked on their job readiness skills, and finished with a culminating group project. Teen Thursdays was a citywide initiative that partnered middle school students with cultural institutions around the city. We focused on guiding our students to engage with the World War II oral history collection, culminating in an original performance piece.

  • Content creation: wrote blog posts for the BHS website; took photos, submitted content, and edited/assisted student content creation for the Teen Thursdays and Teen Innovators Tumblrs.

Macmillan Science and Education

New York, NY (12/2010 - 4/2015)

  1. Technical Finance Administrator (2/2014 - 4/2015)

  2. Operations Support Assistant (9/2011 - 2/2014)

  3. Administrative Assistant (12/2010 - 9/2011)

Working in various roles in the software development division of Macmillan Science and Education, an educational publishing company, my responsibilities included technical administration of the long-term budgeting and sales forecasting software, database management, report preparation, workflow automation, project management, content creation and social media management, event planning, customer support, and operations support for staff located around the world.

Stamford Board of Education, Westhill High School

Stamford, CT (8/2007 - 6/2009)

  1. English, ESL, Journalism/Communications Teacher

  2. Newspaper Advisor

Taught English, English as a Second Language, and Journalism/Communications and advised the student-run newspaper at a socioeconomically and ethnically diverse high school. Exceeded school’s expectations with 25% of students advancing in difficulty level for the next grade (including into honors and AP classes) and 71% of English Language Learners exiting the program, compared to 20% school-wide. I designed and implemented my own curriculum based on constructivist theory and created metrics and documents for assessment. Additionally, I created a class website to engage students and parents and facilitate communication, providing a rationale for the curriculum and how it mapped to state standards and testing.

EDUCATION

New York University

New York, NY (8/2003 - 5/2007)

Bachelor of Science in English Education with minors in Theater Education and French

GPA 3.8, magna cum laude