BetaNYC Alumni Network

Onedeige James

Onedeige is an alumni of the 6th cohort of the Civic Innovation Fellow Program with BetaNYC and the Office of the Manhattan Borough President. She graduated from LaGuardia Community College with an AS in Environmental Science and a BS in Environmental Science, with a focus on Geographic Information Systems at Lehman College.

Ishrat Chowdhury

Ishrat graduated in the spring of 2020 from Queens College with a BA in Computer Science and a minor in Mathematics. She was a Civic Innovation Fellow from 2018-19 and joined BetaNYC as a Mentor in the fall of 2019. She previously interned for a summer at Accenture and will soon be joining them full time as a software engineer. 

Jennifer Maldonado

Jennifer completed her Environmental Studies BA at Queens College in Fall 2019 and was a member of the 5th cohort of the Civic Innovation Fellowship Program. She now holds a position as a Discretionary Actions Consultant, advising on licensing applications as well as assisting with modernizing and streamlining the approval process with respective city agencies.

Ramesh Beharry

Ramesh Beharry collaborates with New York City community boards on improving technology and data literacy, assistance in municipal service delivery, and connection with the communities served. He graduated from the Civic Innovation Fellowship in 2018 and has since worked with community boards on front-end design and build-out of BetaNYC’s constituent relationship management tool, a spreadsheet database with applications and script functionality, which helps ensure service request delivery and enhances our ability to efficiently communicate with civic stakeholders. Before joining the Civic Innovation Fellowship, Ramesh served in the Marine Corps. 

Nicholas He

Nicholas is a former Civic Innovation Fellow from the ninth cohort and a recent graduate from New York City College of Technology with a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Systems. He also holds an A.A.S. in Computer Information Systems from Borough of Manhattan Community College.

After completing BetaNYC’s Civic Innovation Fellowship, he developed a huge passion for open data and wants to use it to help our local community. Nicholas also loves to play basketball in NYC public parks with his friends.

Murat M. Akaydin

Murat, a Native New Yorker and Army Intelligence War Veteran, holds a BBA in IT Management, an MPA in Public Policy and Administration, and certifications in project management, IT service management, and business analysis. Murat served as a member of the 6th cohort of Civic Innovation Fellows with BetaNYC and the Office of the Manhattan Borough President, supporting community boards during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ziqi Wang

Ziqi Wang is currently completing her Master’s degree in Data Analytics and Visualization at Pratt Institute. Before that, she was studying Journalism at Emerson College in Boston, MA. Interested in storytelling, she decided to become a journalist and discovered her interest in data journalism and data storytelling during undergrad. Ziqi is happy and excited to become the cohort of research associates to learn more about data analytics and visualization, as well as build connections with NYC community boards and other agencies, supporting the important work that they do.

HaoChe Hung

Haoche is a Taiwanese graduate student majoring in Urban Planning at Columbia University. Before coming to New York, he was an interior designer and urban researcher practicing in Taiwan and Shanghai. With his interest in the relationship between humans and the built environment, his work varies from designing retail pop-up stores to conducting co-living research based on open data.  HaoChe’s journey in urban analytics and creating digital tools for the public starts in his urban community called IVC-InVisibleCities and he has been devoted to this path since. HaoChe believes BetaNYC is a wonderful place for him to keep experimenting with better ways to shape the physical spaces and public service through digital approaches.     

Eva Decker

Eva grew up in the rural South and graduated with a piano performance degree from UNC Greensboro. She is a self-taught designer and web developer and have spent the past seven years working in San Francisco and New York on a variety of goals—from simplifying collaboration at Dropbox to addressing social determinants of health at Cityblock.

Eva believes that there’s so much we can do with technology and design to foster smarter, healthier, kinder communities, and she is excited to play a small part in making that a reality with BetaNYC.

Vaishali Talwar

Vaishali received her M.Phil. in Physiology and Neuroscience from New York University in 2019. She is a neuroscientist turned data scientist with eight years of industry and research experience. Her graduate thesis focused on the neuroplasticity underlying social behaviors. This experience piqued her interest in using research and data analysis skills to inform public policies. Vaishali is a firm believer in making information accessible and using that information to contribute towards policies that make our lives better. She worked at BetaNYC as a Civic Innovation Lab Associate in 2023.

Sujin Shin

Sujin Shin is currently completing a Master’s of Urban Planning student at Hunter College where her studies focus on Transportation Planning and GeoInformatics. Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, her interest in helping to create more equitable, livable cities began as an undergraduate student when she spent a semester living in Barcelona and a year in Seattle. After undergrad, Sujin spent a few years working in local government and in the non-profit sector, but it was not until moving to San Francisco that she discovered the world of tech. After living in San Francisco, Sujin took courses in Python and GIS, began to study software engineering, and is now a fullstack software engineer.