Erica Kangas
AboutContact

bio

professional

community

awards

talks

media

associations

education

Bio

Erica Kangas is Head of Engineering at Scroobious and has served in a variety of technical roles over the past decade+. Her work has spanned multiple industries, guided by opportunities to build technology and use data to tackle challenging problems that require the collaboration of diverse groups.

Erica earned her undergraduate degrees in Mathematics and Economics from Michigan State University. She began her career in the nonprofit sector as a data analyst for the City Year National Evaluation Team, pioneering the organization’s use of publicly available data to better understand the scope and impact of nation-wide programming, contributing to an equity-based approach to research and evaluation practice. An alumna of Launch Academy, Erica has since worked on engineering teams in a variety of Boston-based startups. From education technology, to competitive intelligence, to advancing women+ and BIPOC-led businesses, she has gained a unique vantage point from having worked across a range of industries and wide spectrum of team diversity.

Erica is passionate about equity in access to educational and economic opportunities, advocating for inclusive hiring practices, team environments that foster a culture of continuous learning, and product development processes grounded in values and ethics. She is currently a mentor at Hack.Diversity, supporting underrepresented and early career tech talent in the Boston area.


Professional

Scroobious

Boston, MA
Head of Engineering
November 2023 - present
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Scroobious' mission is to increase diversity in the startup ecosystem and promote equity in the fundraising experience. The Scroobious platform supports early-stage founders to sharpen their pitch materials and makes it easy for investors to build meaningful relationships with our diverse community of founders through data-driven curation. Our team fosters an incredibly diverse community, connecting early-stage founders, investors, and partners, to break down the barriers that have historically prevented underrepresented founders from accessing the necessary capital to grow their businesses and thrive.

LearnLux

Boston, MA
Director of Engineering
June 2021 - November 2023
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LearnLux is the leading provider of workplace financial wellbeing that blends fiduciary digital planning with access to one-on-one guidance from Certified Financial Planner™️ professionals. LearnLux’s award-winning program equips employees with a financial plan to guide them through key decision points across all life events.

Dough (acq. ANDMORE)

Boston, MA
VP of Engineering, Founding Team
March 2020 - June 2021
Director of Engineering
July 2019 - March 2020
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Acquired by ANDMORE, the world's largest operator of gift, home, and apparel markets, Dough was a venture-backed startup empowering our communities to support women+ owned businesses.

Founding engineer for Dough's B2B2C marketplace dedicated to transparency, activism, and community that amplified revenue streams for over 1,000 women+ led businesses and enabled strategic partnerships with key players such as theSkimm, Ellevest, and Bumble.

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Crayon

Boston, MA
Software Engineer
September 2017 - May 2019
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Collaborated with engineers, designers, and product/customer success teams to build a competitive intelligence platform that helps businesses track, analyze, and act on everything happening outside their four walls.

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Testive

Boston, MA
Web Developer
June 2015 - September 2017
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Full stack engineer for an education technology startup, providing SAT/ACT test prep and tools.

Collaborated with other developers, designers, educators, and marketing/sales/customer support teams to provide students, parents, and teachers with a great learning and customer experience.

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City Year, Inc.

Boston, MA
Evaluation Analyst
August 2013 - February 2015
Evaluation Data Coordinator
November 2011 - August 2013
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Conducted quantitative and qualitative data analysis, data management, and statistical programming to process data, meet complex business logic requirements, and adapt to evolving data collection activities and analytics (SQL, R, SPSS).

Enterprise-wide reporting, presentations, and data visualization on student outcomes, progress toward organizational goals, and program impact.

Responsibilities included merging large, complex datasets from a variety of sources, conducting analyses, and distilling findings to effectively communicate program impact and equip a range of stakeholders with data on student and program outcomes. This included collaborations with and audiences from both internal (senior leadership, grant managers, development staff, marketing/communications teams, program design staff) and external stakeholders (school and district partners, funding partners, general public).

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Kym Campbell Music

Sydney, Australia
Business Development Associate
August 2010 - June 2011
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Development of data collection systems. Conducted business and marketing research; provided summary reports and input on strategic planning. Grant application research and writing. Social media, publicity, and international tour coordination.

ARTD Consultants

Sydney, Australia
Researcher
October 2010 - April 2011
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Data analysis and reporting on over a dozen client projects, including evaluations of non-profit and Australian government programs in education, health and human services, and work force planning. Provided support and analysis for online surveys, paper-based surveys, geographic/mapping data, website analytics, site accessibility, and SEO.

Associated Students of Michigan State University

East Lansing, MI
Director of Student Defenders
May 2009 - April 2010
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Managed department caseload across 9 staff members; case strategy advisor on 35 academic & judicial cases. Provided guidance and support to individual students and the Council of Graduate Students (the official governing body of MSU graduate and graduate-professional/medical students) in highly sensitive, confidential cases. Analyzed and interpreted Students’ Rights policy; student representative/advocate on the revision and restructuring of the University Judicial and Academic disciplinary procedures and policies in collaboration with university faculty and staff.


Community

Hack.Diversity

Mentor
January 2020 - present
Community Advisory Board
January 2021 - January 2022
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Hack.Diversity empowers remarkable people to succeed by bridging the gap between the culture you have and the one you want.

Hack.Diversity partners with employers in Boston’s innovation economy to not only increase the representation of Black and Latine/x technologists in the field, but also evolve organizational behaviors and practices to drive retention and promotion of that talent.

Since inception, 500+ Hack alumni have contributed to 50+ companies across 10+ industries, supported by a dedicated mentor network from innovative companies across the country.

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GET Cities, Chicago

Mentor
December 2020 - September 2021
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Gender Equality in Tech (GET) Cities is a national initiative designed to accelerate the representation and leadership of women+ in tech to meet the demands of the industry’s future. GET Cities is led by SecondMuse and Break Through Tech in partnership with Pivotal Ventures, the investment and incubation company created by Melinda French Gates.

Served as a Career Mentor, providing one-on-one mentorship for one of the twenty Fellows of the GET Chicago Fellowship program, the inaugural cohort for the first city to be selected as a GET Cities site.

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Massachusetts Service Alliance

Community Grant Reviewer, AmeriCorps
2020
Community Grant Reviewer, Commonwealth Corps
2020-2021
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Provided input and feedback on AmeriCorps and Commonwealth Corps program proposals and potential grant recipient applications.

American Evaluation Association

Reviewer, Annual Meeting of the AEA
2014
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Reviewed proposals for the annual meeting of the AEA in PreK-12 Education and Data Visualization & Reporting.


Awards

Social Impact Scholar

The Leadership Consortium
Spring 2021
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One of two scholarship recipients, awarded to leaders who are unable to access TLC programming within their organization in recognition of their commitment to enacting meaningful change and passion for inclusion. Social Impact Scholars are extended the opportunity to participate in the TLC Leaders Program, in a mission to help more and varied leaders thrive.

Idealism in Action Award

City Year
November 2014
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"For building bridges within and outside City Year, bringing transformational ideas, analytic approaches, and tools to our evaluation work with integrity, humility, and inspiring curiosity. You have enhanced our ability to report and communicate results against complex goals, glean insights to inform program design, and understand our whole school impact."

Mass EduData Challenge: Best Use of Data Award

Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, hack/reduce, Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education
July 2014
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"The project with the best use of core and comparative data. The data represented is useful, insightful, and actionable insights can be derived."

Led City Year Evaluation team in the development of an interactive data visualization: Exploring Data on Girls' Achievement in STEM Education.


Presentations & Talks

Decoding Your Path: Finding the Engineering Role That's Right For You

Panel member for Startup Boston Week event.
Startup Boston
Watch event recording
Virtual
September 2023

Building Tech Equity: Insights from the Startup Scene

Panel member for Code for Boston X SPARK Boston event.
Code for Boston X SPARK Boston event page
Watch event recording
Virtual
June 2021

Towards Equitable Ecommerce: Dough's Approach to Leveling the Playing Field

Presented at the 10th Annual Boston Area Research Initiative (BARI) Conference.
BARI 2021
Watch event recording
Virtual
April 2021

Industry Night

Panel member for Lambda School event.
Lambda School event page
Virtual
March 2021

How to Transition to a Career in EdTech

Panel member for Boston EdTech Foundation event.
Boston EdTech event page
Virtual
March 2021

Nailing Your Engineering Interview

Panel member for Women Who Code chapter event.
Women Who Code Boston event page
Boston, MA
May 2019

Spotlight on Tech Talent

Panel member for Workable event.
Workable event page
Boston, MA
May 2019

Attending a Bootcamp

Panel member for Women Who Code chapter event.
Women Who Code Boston event page
Boston, MA
July 2018

Big Data and Open Data: New Possibilities for Evaluation in Education

Presented at the meeting of the American Evaluation Association.
AEA 2014 abstract
Denver, CO
October 2014

A collaborative mixed-method evaluation of a multi-site student behavior, school culture, and climate program

Presented at the meeting of the American Evaluation Association.
AEA 2013 abstract
Washington, DC
October 2013

Media

MSU alumna encourages shopping from women-owned brands, supports underrepresented communities

WKAR, PBS/NPR
WKAR PBS/NPR article
April 2021

Engineering Spotlight: Crayon

VentureFizz
VentureFizz article
February 2019

5 Questions With Hackathon Winner Erica Manoppo

WBUR Learning Lab
WBUR interview
July 2014

Professional Associations

Underscore VC, Core Member

October 2020 - present
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The Underscore Core is a curated group of exceptional entrepreneurs, executives, and experts who work in partnership with Underscore VC, an earliest stage venture capital firm, to identify transformative entrepreneurs and support them as they build iconic companies. Core Members have collectively built hundreds of companies, created thousands of jobs, served millions of customers and created billions of dollars in value for their stakeholders.

Inaugural All Raise Visionary Voices Speakers Bureau

September 2020 - present
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The All Raise Voices Speakers Bureau was created to amplify women’s voices in tech conversations and increase diverse representation at events and in media coverage by making speakers and sources readily available to event organizers and reporters.

American Evaluation Association

September 2013 - September 2015
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The American Evaluation Association (AEA) is a professional association for evaluators and those with a professional interest in the field of evaluation, including practitioners, faculty, students, funders, managers, and government decision-makers.


Education & Training

Michigan State University

B.S. Mathematics, B.S. Economics, minor: Asian Studies
2005-2010
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Activities and Societies: Honors College, Associated Students of Michigan State University (Director of Student Defenders), and MSU Mock Trial Association (Secretary & Team Lead)

The Leadership Consortium

Social Impact Scholar, The TLC Leaders Program
2021
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The TLC Leaders Program convenes top talent from best-in-class partner companies, immersing participants in a virtual development experience that accelerates leadership impact. The program combines an interactive leadership curriculum delivered by hand-picked Harvard Business School faculty with a powerfully diverse peer network to develop executives who lead stronger teams and bring a broader strategic mindset to their business.

Launch Academy

Ruby on Rails Apprentice
2015
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Launch Academy is a 10-week, immersive bootcamp that builds foundational skills in web development and fosters essential collaboration skills to train graduates to be valuable contributors on software engineering teams and in the development community.

SDP Institute for Leadership in Analytics, Harvard University Center for Education Policy and Research

Participant
2014
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The Strategic Data Project Institute for Leadership in Analytics at Harvard University is a four-day data workshop for education analysts and research leaders who want to leverage data to inform decision making and improve student achievement.

Sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.