The Many Hats of DFA’s Kelly Wisneski
This post was originally published on June 1, 2020.
Photo of Kelly Wisneski (2018)You’ve worn so many hats in the DFA Network — share some of your roles and fav memories.
Well they were all my favorite. One of the incredible things about DFA is that it always meets you where you’re at. When I was a freshman at WashU, I thought DFA was product design; instead, it showed me the wonderful world of design thinking. When I was a studio lead, DFA showed me how to manage a team of peers through huge periods of growth, plan events, coach projects, and manage partnerships. As a DFA intern, I learned how to work in an office, and how design thinking can be applied to organizations. As a Fellow, I saw the importance of collaborating with teammates that have totally different working styles, and learned how to coach students and projects on a national scale. As a Program Coordinator, DFA taught me how to create a data management system for a national nonprofit, and how to manage an office of your best friends.
Of course, it wasn’t “DFA” that taught me these things, it was the people of DFA: my teammates, friends, peers, advisors, and mentors. That’s why I can’t pick my favorite role — how do you pick your favorite best friend? I wouldn’t be here without Julia Kong, Raissa Xie, and Jonathan Robison showing me the DFA WashU leadership ropes; Maya Mashkovish, Eva Nip, Amelia Fong, and Claire Quinlan humoring me as I made DFA WashU my life; Liz Kramer and Rob Morgan mentoring me through those exhausting (I mean…exciting) undergrad years; Geneva Vest, Michelle Baverman, and all the Fellows that came before me teaching me how to be an empathetic and organized coach; Irfan Ibrahim, Glory Dang, Ross Brunetti, and all the Summer interns challenging me to be a better manager and Chicago citizen; and Rob Calvey, Alden Burke, and Rebecca Breuer demonstrating how to lead, manage, coach, share, collaborate, and and laugh.
DFA is more than the sum of its parts, more than the sum of its wonderful individuals, and I am a product of that.
“DFA is more than the sum of its parts, more than the sum of its wonderful individuals, and I am a product of that.”
Some of my favorite memories? In no particular order except chronological:
Showing up to the Airbnb I’d picked for the DFA WashU Blueprint (leadership board) retreat only to discover that it was a decommissioned University of Missouri – St. Louis frat house (you could still see the outline of the letters on the brick facade).
My first Midwest Meetup at DFA U Cincinnati, and driving around in the trunk of my teammate’s car, exploring Cincinnati. That was after our WashU car showed up like 3 hours late because we forgot to account for traffic and, oh yeah, there’s a time zone change between Missouri and Ohio?! Who knew.
Licking the side of this Frank Lloyd Wright house with fellow ex-architecture Fellow Michelle Baverman my intern summer.
Spending my senior year getting to know all the wonderful freshmen that have made DFA WashU what it is today.
Throwing snowballs at (and growing with) fellow Fellow Irfan Ibrahim.
Showing Glory Dang and fellow Teva-wearer Ross Brunetti how to be the best. Fellows ever.
Walking from the DFA office to downtown Evanston to get Andy’s custard, simply because Thi insisted on it.
Celebrating the success of Summit 2019 (the best Summit ever) over pizza with the best DFA team ever — minus Irfan because he sliced his thumb open (?!).
What’s next in the life of Kelly?
Drawing inspiration from the research project Lexi and I just wrapped up with The Lab at OPM, I’ll be heading into the civic space next. I’ll be joining DB Sterlin Consultants as a Civil Engineering Technician in their Project Coordination Office at the Chicago Department of Transportation (how many prepositions can you have in one sentence?). Essentially, I’ll be doing data and project management to make Chicago’s streets better!
I’ll also be pursuing my Masters of Science in Data Science part-time from Northwestern University, which I started back in March.
TL;DR wooo civic tech!
How can people stay in touch with you?
You can stay in touch with me by email (klwisneski@gmail.com), DFA Alumni+Friends Slack (@kelly), or if you want to endure some bad jokes, Twitter (@wisneskidding).
