2018 MIMS Final Project Judges

Track 1 Judges

Ruchi Kumar Chand
User Experience Design Manager, LinkedIn
MIMS 2009
Ruchi Kumar Chand is a mindful design leader who lives by the mantra that happy people make happy products. She takes joy in bringing clarity to complex systems and situations. At LinkedIn, her team is bringing new infoviz, enterprise, and consumer products to life in the Talent Solutions space. She started her career as an engineer and moved into the design field after completing her MIMS degree at the I School. She previously worked at Facebook and SAP.

Dan Perkel
Design Lead, IDEO
MIMS 2005, Ph.D. 2011
Dan Perkel is a director at IDEO San Francisco, where he steers multidisciplinary teams across a diverse spectrum of client challenges and helps guide the design research community. An experienced designer and ethnographer, Dan loves helping clients and teams draw insights from everyday life to inform the design of new strategy, products, and services. He is especially interested in how media fans propel the distribution of entertainment and, in turn, can drive the design of new experiences. Prior to joining IDEO, Dan earned his Ph.D. from the I School, where he examined creative communities’ use of social media and networks. He was also a founding member of the Digital Youth Project, a MacArthur Foundation–funded study that examined young people’s everyday use of digital technologies and social media.

Bailey Smith
Server Engineering Manager, Apple Podcasts
MIMS 2012
Bailey Smith is a MIMS 2012 alumna and the server engineering manager for Apple Podcasts. In 2017 her company Pop Up Archive, a transcription and podcast search platform, was acquired by Apple. The project began as Pop Up Radio Archive, a Chen Award-winning MIMS Final Project in 2012. In addition to the Chen Award, the project was a finalist in UC Berkeley’s “Big Ideas” competition, won a $300,000 Knight News Challenge grant, and later received seed investment from Bloomberg Beta, the Knight Foundation, and 500 Startups.

Track 2 Judges

Sindhuja Jeyabal
Co-Founder and CTO, Dost Education
MIMS 2016
Sindhuja is passionate about universal access to high-quality holistic education. She is an expert in education technology and has years of experience building mobile and education products for companies like Samsung and Adobe Systems. She took inspiration from her father’s experience as a first-generation learner and founded Dost Education to help parents of any literacy level take charge of their child’s education. She is a strong believer in co-creating products with the users and continuously measuring outcomes. She obtained her master’s in information management and systems from the University of California, Berkeley where she specialized in data science and ICT for development. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from BITS Pilani, India.

Julia Kosheleva-Coats
VP of Enterprise Analytics and Data Science, Wells Fargo Bank
MIMS 2014
Julia Kosheleva-Coats is a vice president of enterprise analytics and data science at Wells Fargo Bank. She leads the customer genome project, working to develop prediction-based insights into customer needs and expectations using machine learning algorithms. Her work on this project is focused not only on driving deeper customer insights for the bank, but also on leading transformation of analytical practices. Prior to enterprise analytics and data science, Julia led a team of analytics and data science professionals in the wholesale banking division of Wells Fargo. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from San Francisco State University and a MIMS degree from UC Berkeley.

Barbara Blaise Stone
MIMS 1999
Barbara studied at the I School after several years working in banking, managing operations, production, and regulatory compliance organizations. She graduated in the class of 1999 and taught technical program management at the I School for four semesters. She spent 18 years at HP, where she led initiatives in software, content management, portfolio optimization, M&A, and IT services. Her last positions were in global delivery, where she managed a $1.7 billion program to transform HP’s delivery of IT services to enterprise customers. She holds a BA in classical languages (Greek and Latin) as well as a MIMS, both from UC Berkeley. Currently, she mentors software start-ups through 500 Startups, Y Combinator, and Female Founders Pitch Female Funders.