Yoshi Bird (she/her)

Yoshi Bird is the Associate Director of Partnership Compliance for Code for America. Trained in the law at the University of Michigan, Yoshi Bird returned to academia in 2021 to pursue a PhD in Complex Systems and Data Science at the University of Vermont after a career in homelessness services spanning two states, three Continua of Care, and nearly twenty years of professional experience. Systems improvement and integration has been a lifelong passion for Yoshi, who worked with domestic violence and general-population shelter providers to develop regional protocols for survivors of intimate partner violence to safely access key resources in western Massachusetts for the first time. During the pandemic, she also took a leadership role in re-tooling shelter service delivery in partnership with regional partner providers to change from a congregate to hotel model and to prevent infectious disease transmission while respecting participants’ unique concerns and needs. Yoshi’s role as the founding Project Director of the Vermont Zoning Atlas, an open-science collaboration of academia with the public and private sectors, introduced her to civic tech. As Project Director, Yoshi led a team of 36 volunteers, students, interns, and managers to catalogue and geospatially map land use regulations statewide in an effort to better understand and address barriers to affordable housing development and respond to Vermont’s housing crisis. Her research interests include complex systems theory and the insights it provides into multi-scale systems interventions, federal US housing policy, and community-engaged, social justice-oriented computational social science generally. In her free time, Yoshi enjoys running four miles a day, consuming feminist and queer horror, volunteering, and spending time with her family. She is a member of the Easthampton Fair and Affordable Housing Partnership.

Fun facts: Yoshi’s team won First Place at the National Fair Housing Alliance’s 2023 Tech Equity Hackathon!

Family: Yoshi’s daughter, Arianna, is a sensitive and talented artist with a warm heart for cats and anyone who might be vulnerable or afraid. Yoshi’s partner Tony is equally adept at grantwriting (his win list is over $200 million!) and home renovation. Her stepdaughter (Tony’s daughter), KC, is a loyal, fearless, strong-willed social justice warrior in training.  Pronouns: she/her