About 412Connect
Who We Are
We are Grief to Action (G2A), a multidisciplinary working group at the University of Pittsburgh dedicated to building online platforms to serve marginalized communities. A network out of the Center for Analytical Approaches to Social Innovation (CAASI) at GSPIA, we are composed of Pittsburgh community activists, Pitt alumni, faculty, and staff, and students across schools and degree programs in and outside of Pitt (CMU, WUStL, UCBerkeley, GWU, Tufts, and more) united in our conviction of universities’ public service role.
When the George Floyd protests began in late May 2020, CAASI Director Sera Linardi reached out to the Pitt community and invited students, faculty, and staff to join her in a weekly Zoom call to discuss ways to turn our grief into action. We came together in heartbreak, outrage, and even a sense of helplessness—what could we do? We’ve met nearly every Friday since to discuss this question and currently have two projects under development: 412Connect and Allegheny County Policing Project (ACPP).
412Connect is an effort to engage with the community beyond our university campuses and self-reflect along the way. For Fall 2022, this platform presents a snapshot of the organizational assets within our neighboring community, Homewood, to facilitate our students' interest in becoming cohesive members of the broader Pittsburgh community. We are grateful for the support of community partners such as Anika Jones and Keith Caldwell at Pitt’s CEC in Homewood (Homewood organization recruiters), Jess Kaminsky and Dylan Pollack from CMU’s Center for Shared Prosperity (Student Engagement), Alex Jackson of Data for Black Lives, Herman Johnson of Community Forge (on surveys of BOBs’ needs), Khamil Bailey of Cocoapreneur, Kyley Coleman of Blackowned.pgh (on data collection for a future BOB directory), and David Walker of WPRDC (on technical advice). We also thank Dr. Alex Labrinidis and Dr. Luis de Oliviera of SCI Pitt for programming support through the CS1980 capstones.
CAASI Grief to Action's other project, ACPP, is building tools to help citizens better understand the police accountability process in Allegheny County, which has over 100 police departments. We have approached this by creating a database of contracts and an accompanying search tool. Learn more at www.grieftoaction.org.
G2A is always seeking new members who are passionate about racial justice. We need people with all skill sets: community building, marketing, programming, legal, and research. Whether you are a community member, undergrad, grad student, alumni, staff, or faculty able to spare one or 100 hours, your presence will have a lasting impact on G2A. We meet Fridays at noon over Zoom and begin every meeting with a brief moment of mindfulness. To learn more or join the team, please email caasi@pitt.edu!
Our Team
Launch 2.0
Advisors

Keith Caldwell,
EdD, MSW, LSW
Executive Director of Place Based Initiatives, Office of Engagement & Community Affairs
University of Pittsburgh

Jess Kaminsky
Senior Community Engagement Specialist at the new Center for Shared Prosperity at
Carnegie Mellon University

Trupti Sarode
Director of Innovation & Strategy, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs,
University of Pittsburgh
Management Team

Sera Linardi
CAASI Director, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh GSPIA

Ivy Chang
Project Manager, Finance and Economics Undergraduate Student, University fo Pittsbrugh DSAS

Kiara Jimenez
Digital Content Associate, English Lit and Psychology Undergraduate Student, University of Pittsburgh DSAS
Community Engagement Team

Dylan Pollak
Carnegie Mellon University Community Liaison

Anika Jones
Outreach Coordinator for the PittCEC in Homewood

Lisanne Biolos
Co-founder of ZUZlab

Vinay Kunuthuru
Computational Biology and Economics Undergraduate Student,
University of Pittsburgh
Technology Team

Palash Sharma
Technical Program Manager, Information Science Graduate Student,
University of Pittsburgh

Leo Jung
Programmer, Statistics and Machine Learning,
Carnegie Mellon University

Karandeep Parashar
Computer Science
Graduate Student,
University of Pittsburgh
Platform Design Team

Alex DiChristofano
CAASI Director, Computational & Data Sciences PhD Student
Washington University in St. Louis

Michael Hamilton
Research Lead, Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh Katz School of Business

Alana Wu
Decision Science
Undergraduate Student,
Carnegie Mellon University
Launch 1.0
Advisory Board

Herman Johnson
Community Forge and Root 28 Clothing

Miguelina Javier
American Eagle Outfitters
Management Team

Sera Linardi
CAASI Director, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh GSPIA

Claire Guth
Senior Program Manager, PhD Candidate, University of Pittsburgh GSPIA (June 2020 - May 2021)

Mara McCloud
Project Manager and Community Engagement Coordinator, MPIA candidate, University of Pittsburgh GSPIA (June 2020 - August 2021

I Younan An
Project Manager, PhD Candidate, Political Science, University of Toronto (June 2020 - May 2021), GSPIA Alumni

Collin Griffin
Technical Project Manager, Computer Science and Economics Student, University of Pittsburgh SCI

Ivy Bryony Chang
Communications Coordinator, Finance and Economics Student, University of Pittsburgh DSAS

Tyler Olin
User Experience Designer, University of Pittsburgh SCI Alumni
Community Engagement Team

Sonya Akhgar
Community Engagement Liaison, PhD Candidate, Political Science, UC Santa Barbara, GSPIA Alumni

Diane Cohen
Assistant Director, University of Pittsburgh GSPIA

Alex Jackson
Masters Student, Carnegie Mellon University Heinz College

Vannie Wang
MPA Student, University of Pittsburgh GSPIA
Technology Team

Kevin DeMaioribus
University of Pittsburgh SCI Alumni

Andi Halim
Data Science Student, UC Berkeley

Gurmail Mathon
University of Pittsburgh SCI Alumni

Jeremy Olin
University of Pittsburgh SCI Alumni
Platform Design Team

Michael Hamilton
Research Lead, Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh Katz School of Business

Alex DiChristofano
Data Lead, Data Science PhD Student, Washington University at St. Louis