Nice to meet you! I’m
Maria Yokochi Ordal
/横地真理亜

Double majoring in computer science and mathematics (and thesising in statistics), I'm a senior at Wellesley College with a strong inclination towards visual design and a belief in doing things just for the joy of learning. I embrace the art of improvement in all I do—whether it's coding, designing, or collaborating.

a circular icon that says 'designer, developer' designed by Maria Yokochi Ordal
Maria Yokochi Ordal in a red furisode kimono

Seijin-shiki (coming-of-age) photo from when I turned 20!

01.

Who I am

A wearer of many hats: front-end developer, graphic designer, UI/UX architect, software engineer... My greatest joy is found when engaged in projects I'm deeply invested in (and I am very easily invested...). I especially love helping organizations, in whose work I believe, create sites and products that do them justice.

I just might be the biggest Figma enthusiast you’ve ever met

Not a joke—I use it whenever remotely reasonable (program for a show? yes • instagram story for a friend's birthday? of course • spam for an org? there's no other option!)

Maria Yokochi Ordal in a red furisode kimono

Seijin-shiki (coming-of-age) photo from when I turned 20!

In my free time, you can find me...

Development-conscious designer
Design-conscious developer
Development-conscious designer
Design-conscious developer
Development-conscious designer
Design-conscious developer
Development-conscious designer
Design-conscious developer
Design-conscious developer
Development-conscious designer
Design-conscious developer
Development-conscious designer
Design-conscious developer
Development-conscious designer
Design-conscious developer
Development-conscious designer
02.

What I've been up to

I’ve been lucky to work on projects I love at places I love with people I love, and there’s so much more I could say about how these have shaped me. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re curious about any of them! :)

Applied Social Media Lab Intern

@ Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

The organization

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at is a leading research center dedicated to exploring the impact of the internet and digital technologies on society. Its Applied Social Media Lab is a prototyping lab building social media solutions in the public interest.

Fall 2024

This fall I will continue working on transparency-related work under Zoe Roberts!

Summer 2024

This was one of three jobs I worked during the summer of 2024! Among other things, over summer I co-hosted an ASML forum on truth decay, conducted a literature review on how journalism has changed over the past 20 years, and worked on designing a transparency reporting archive.

Developer and Designer UROP

@ MIT Center for Constructive Communication (MIT Media Lab)

The organization

The MIT Center for Constructive Communication (CCC) is a lab within MIT Media Lab that seeks to understand modern media, innovate communication tools, and strengthen democracy by bridging societal divides and countering fragmentation.

Fall 2024

This fall I'll be working with Belén Saldías on Odessa. Decentralized sociotechnical systems can enable scaled cooperation across communities, from the beautifully small to the formidably global. In order to do so effectively, we must be able to design systems for identity, reputation, moderation, and governance. Project Odessa builds on theoretical designs and provides a mobile app sandbox for such experimental implementations.

Summer 2024

This was one of three jobs I worked during the summer of 2024! Using a mixture of CCC and DemocracyNext branding, I designed and implemented a site to document the first-ever tech-enhanced Student Assembly at MIT during the Independent Activities Period (IAP) in January 2024. In this exploratory three-day event, a dozen students gathered to deliberate on ethical guidelines and regulations needed to govern the use of generative AI for faculty and students at MIT.

a screenshot of the tech-enhanced student assembly site

The main splash of the homepage!

a screenshot of the tech-enhanced student assembly site

The sticky side navigation!

Fall 2023, Spring 2024

Throughout my junior year, I continued primarily working on the main CCC site. I implented new features like sorting and filtering, revamped projects pages, and a tagging system.

Summer 2023

My first semester at CCC, I successfully transitioned the CCC site from being largely hardcoded to one built with ACF blocks, allowing for a code-free and stylistically opinionated user experience for the site's content editors.

a gif scrolling through an Event & Opportunity page that Maria Yokochi Ordal coded

Look at this Events & Opportunites nav bar!

One of my favorite parts of the new site is this Events & Opportunities nav bar! It auto-populates so that site editors don't ever have to worry about it. I may not be able to get you in the Gutenberg editor to modify content, but you can visit the live site. :)

Undergraduate Researcher (Multidimensional Combinatorics)

@ Wellesley College's Mathematics Department

Summer 2024

The third job I worked this summer was math research in multidimensional and analogs of Catalan numbers under Professor Stanley Chang. I explored multidimensional Catalan numbers as generated by Young tableaux, and analogs which can be generated from extensions of the coin-stacking Catalan instance.

Data Structures Tutor, TA, & Grader

@ Wellesley College's CS Department

Spring 2023

I was both a Pforzheimer Learning & Teaching Center (PLTC) peer tutor and CS department TA. Combined, I conducted one-on-one tutoring, hend weekly office hours, graded problem sets, and was a teaching assistant at weekly labs.

Digital Design Intern

@ ClinIntell

The organization

ClinIntell is a data analytics firm innovating in the clinical documentation improvement industry. Basically, it has to do with the analysis of hospital inpatient data!

I technically was a “Digital Design Intern”, whatever that really means, but ClinIntell taught me how to work. What does it truly mean to show up at work? In what ways can interpersonal dynamics impact output? Through the wide variety of projects I was on, I learned how to dive into work that required skills I needed to self-teach. Here is where I learned how to be comfortable with discomfort. It's simply indicative of growth!

A peek at one of my projects

a an image of a page that Maria designed

The Training App page! (under Features)

A colleague and I entirely designed the ClinIntell site over the month of 2021's winter break. This included the information architecture, brand refresh, page layouts, and animated images.

03.

Get in touch!

My inbox is always open! I am always open to chatting about potential projects, things I’ve worked on, shared interests, interpersonal dynamics, or anything in between. I love tea, so perhaps we can meet over a cup sometime (virtually, unless you’re local to where I happen to be :).