Meet the team: Mary Celestin
How long have you been working at Ivaldi? How did it all start?
I’ve been working at Ivaldi since Summer 2020. I got connected to Ivaldi through adjacent work with Gate 510. I’d connected with Deborah Acosta, former Chief Innovation Officer of San Leandro, in the beginning of 2019 and she’s become a mentor of mine. I’d been talking with her during Winter 2019-2020 and brainstorming my summer plans. She invited me to work with her at Gate 510 and gave me the creative license to create my own internship summer experience. I wanted to develop my project management skills and my technical engineering skills so I researched all the companies in Gate 510 and found my interests most directly aligned with Ivaldi. I pitched a joint internship where I’d work part time for Ivaldi as an engineer and part time for Deborah/developing Gate 510 as a project manager. Deborah introduced me to the team at Ivaldi, Anna interviewed me in Spring 2020 and I was invited to join the team. Due to COVID-19, I was unable to project manage the development of Gate 510, but have had a blast working with Ivaldi and currently work with Deborah as an intern for her Smart City Diaries Podcast Team.
What is your expertise/ role?
I’m an engineering intern. My areas of knowledge include project management, electrical systems, risk management, team leadership, invention and design, sustainable communities, continuum mechanics, industrial manufacturing, agile principles and SCRUM, project proposals, procedure development, collaboration and organization, chemical and thermal processes, academic writing, communication and marketing.
At Ivaldi, I’ve primarily worked in the following areas – research and development, UX design and software structure process improvements, SolidWorks CAD and SCRUM management.
What’s your favorite part about working at the company?
I love the SCRUM management and sprint/start-up culture. I like having quick turnarounds for projects and getting to work on multiple projects at a time. It’s a lot of fun to be working with team members from all different branches to create great products for our clients!
What are the company’s values you stand for?
I really appreciate how Ivaldi prioritizes the career development of all the team members. I also appreciate how the team prioritizes building authentic relationships and a psychologically safe working environment with our weekly accomplishment shoutouts and team bonding events. Finally, I love the strong vision to redefine and streamline supply chains through AM
How do you spend your time outside of work? What do you enjoy doing?
I’m currently a full-time engineering student at Harvey Mudd College so I spend a lot of time in class and doing homework and projects. I will be graduating in May 2021 with a BS in Engineering. At Harvey Mudd, I’m the Co-President for our Engineers Without Borders Chapter, a STEM curriculum developer and teacher for STEAMCoders through the Computer Science Department, a member of BLAM (Black Lives At Mudd). I’m also a musician (a low-fi neo-soul singer/songwriter) and a sci-fi/fantasy author. I love listening to music, hanging out with family/friends, and running/walking/jump roping.
My most notable work outside work has been founding San Jose Strong: a grassroots organization to reinvent my hometown, San Jose, for and by the community. After a series of serendipitous events thrust me into a leadership role within the San Jose BLM activist space, I saw a need for a centralized digital location for information dissemination on a city scale. I founded San Jose Strong in June 2020 with two arms in mind: one arm is our digital platform for SJ folks to get plugged into their city—with resources to make everything from local government to transportation digestible and accessible—and the other arm is our hub for community organizers and activists to create initiatives, projects, programs and events that support the San Jose community (aka our committees).
We are now a 501©3 Fiscally Sponsored organization and currently have 12+ committees, 50-75+ active volunteers, 250+ members on our Discord, 10,300+ social media followers and have spearheaded over a dozen initiatives, projects, programs and events in support of the San Jose community! It’s been amazing to see so many people come together to better our city <3 If you want to learn more about San Jose Strong, check out my music, and more – feel free to check out my lnk.bio at https://lnk.bio/maryjessiecelestin/.
What makes Ivaldi unique?
The things I loved about the company’s values are also aspects that I find unique to Ivaldi–from their technical mission statement to their goals to support Ivaldi employees. I believe Ivaldi will be at the forefront of on-demand manufacturing and am excited to see the growth Ivaldi has in store!
What’s your favorite quote?
“All that you touch you Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change.” – Octavia Butler
