Electric Violinist. Transformational Educator. Engineering Leader.

I had the pleasure of working with Jess in her role as Co-Chair and Founder of the Inclusive Access Alliance Employee Resource Group (ERG). Running and leading an ERG is a heavy lift in and of itself but starting an ERG requires strategic thinking, influence, leadership and a genuine passion for making the workplace and workforce more diverse and inclusive. Jess and her Co-Chair built and grew their ERG to what it is today. They created a safe space for employees who identify as having a disability and have done amazing work to normalize the conversation around disability in general. They elevated the visibility of disability all across the company and have created a beautiful partnership with the People Team to create better recruiting and accommodation processes that everyone can benefit from. The reason why this relationship works is due to Jess and her Co-Chair’s ability to be incredibly diplomatic while demonstrating integrity, humility and kindness. What they built is not small…for many employees, it’s the glue that keeps people at the company and creates a feeling of belonging. I am grateful for all Jess did to leave us 1000x better than she found us and I’m looking forward to seeing the amazing things she builds in the future!

Dr. Jess is what they call a ‘unicorn’. She has the rare skillset of strength in both right-brain and left-brain thinking. Her logical knowledge and experiences are obvious given her technical skillset. But she can also communicate her knowledge to others in a way that they understand. People truly show expertise when they can communicate complicated topics simply. Dr. Jess took her time explaining a technical area to me in a way that I could understand. She was gracious, and positive-minded, and made me feel empowered enough to move forward in a new direction. Oftentimes, just the thought of learning new skills can be scary, let alone learning the skill itself. I would highly recommend Dr. Jess as an educator and coach for her abilities to communicate efficiently, her mastery of technological content, and her overall can-do and infectious attitude.

Along with an innate intelligence and keen perception, Jess is an extremely hard worker and conscientious mentor and manager. She always went to bat for her direct reports; worked hard to network above and forge healthy and important relationships; and, above all, is forthrightly honest and inherently approachable. Jess is extremely passionate and knowledgeable about testing and teaching, and it shows. Her writing and presentation skills are excellent, as well.

Jess is an exceptional human being and an effectual manager and colleague who is gifted at uplifting individual contributors and positioning them for professional success while shielding them from the burdens of management. Jess fosters an environment that results in cohesive teams that readily deliver solutions of the highest quality. She is equally adept at mentoring colleagues to become their best selves in an organization.

I had the pleasure of working with Jess at HashiCorp for more than a year. I was the team lead and she was our engineering manager. We inherited a team with a loose structure that had symptoms of engineers feeling isolated on their own projects, status updates and expected handoffs were hard to come by, and overall a talented a great team, but team cohesion could improve. Jess and I immediately clicked on how we wanted things to change and how we would try implementing change without overloading or being heavy handed. We were able to greatly improve the overall team cohesion and morale, as well as improve the outward communication of the team and confidence in how we worked and promises we made. Jess prioritizes honesty, openness, straight talk and a sense of humor. She has your back to the end and is appreciate by her peers, her leaders, as well as engineers that report to her. She brings a great background of testing knowledge to help round out a team of engineers and provide a welcome customer and quality angle. She is fantastic manager and I hope to work with her again in the future.

Dr.Jess and I have worked together to develop the Coding Academy at the Teens College Summer Academy at Queensborough Community College. She has inspired many a coder- and she continues this course throughout the year with many repeat students who want more and learn more as they move forward with their own personal goals. We recently collaborated towards an adult student Web Development course that is a series of classes that will help the adult student create a final portfolio that will be a representation of their work for recruiters. If that wasn’t enough, Dr. Jess will be teaching music to young adults that will create an ensemble for proud parents to listen to! My work with Dr. Jess seems to be that whatever or whomever’s vision we seek to materialize, it gets done. And the best part is seeing the students thrive; we believe in an inclusive setting so there are many definitions of success in our eyes. Thanks Jess!