Scott Lederer
Azavea
Designing for civic, social, and environmental good
2016–2022
Azavea was a mission-driven B-corp and renowned software agency in Philadelphia that specialized in building web apps for geospatial use cases and data. With a focus on civic, social, and environmental impact, and a commitment to geo, our team took on map- and aerial imagery-centric projects that made a difference.
Over my six years with Azavea, as both individual contributor and design lead, I collaborated with an exceptional team to deliver high-quality UX solutions under the unique constraints of mission-driven work. Drawing from my experience designing local search for Google Maps, I helped revolutionize Azavea’s design practice and team structure.
Key achievements include:
- Team Evolution: Spearheaded the introduction of new roles, including UX Strategist and UX Engineer, to strengthen the design team’s capabilities.
- Design Ops Modernization: Led the transition to modern design tools and processes, optimizing workflows for efficiency and collaboration.
- Accessibility Champion: Elevated accessibility standards across our design and development work, ensuring that inclusivity became a core principle.
- Leadership Contributions: Served on hiring committees for executive and mission-critical roles. Facilitated a strategic refresh for the executive team through hands-on workshops. Founding member of DEI Council.
Individual contributions included discovery, design, and frontend engineering for a wealth of projects and partners. Personal favorites include:
- NYC Parks & Rec: Shadowed foresters on tree inspection routes across New York’s outer boroughs, to inform a redesign of their custom workflow app.
- Philadelphia Water Department: Collaborated on a program enabling citizens to install anti-trash informational medallions on storm drains, empowering community-driven action.
- Clean Air Council: Designed and built an interactive platform to help locals and visitors navigate to environmental destinations via foot, bike, and rail.
- Facebook’s Data for Good: Visualized gender disparities in rural access in international geographies, contributing to impactful social insights.
- Philadelphia’s Amazon HQ2 Bid: Played a key role in the city’s proposal to host Amazon’s second headquarters.
Additional projects ran the gamut: accessible transit planning, supply chain transparency, deforestation monitoring, climate adaptation and mitigation, drone imagery management, public school funding empowerment, AR museum tours, urban tree management, environmental science, medical imaging, and more.
