I left the private sector when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 to join Resolve to Save Lives, a non-profit founded by Dr. Tom Frieden, President Obama’s CDC Director. I led a cross-disciplinary team of product managers, designers, product operations experts, and solutions architects. We created a variety of tools designed to help US public health jurisdictions speed up contact tracing to help reduce outbreaks. We also partnered with the Africa CDC to create a COVID tracking dashboard.
During my tenure, I helped the WHO develop digital vaccination certificate standards, helped recruit and hire a Chief Digital Advisor for the Africa CDC, and supported the US CDC with technology response to the pandemic.
Role: Director of Product and Design, US COVID Response
Team size: 8
Team & Operations Impact
Recruited and hired SVP of Technology to unify efforts across initiatives
Recruited and hired Chief Digital Advisor for Africa CDC as part of secondment agreement
Inherited leadership role suddenly and brought balance to team at difficult time
Mentored and supported growth of team members
Facilitated executive leadership retreat
Managed reporting to donors
Managed challenging relationship with external partners
Worked closely with epidemiologists, scientists, government officials, and large NGOs like WHO, CDC, and Africa CDC across many cultures and timezones
Managed budget of ~$2 million
Product Impact
Co-created COVID hotspot dashboard in partnership with Africa CDC that helped country leaders and African Union execute rational pandemic response
Co-created COVID dashboard in partnership with Franklin County, OH Department of Public Health
Co-led fundraising efforts to attract new benefactors to support $75 million digital public service project
Supported creation of digital transformation strategy for Africa CDC
Serve as temporary advisor to WHO on creation of digital smart vaccine credentials
Supported CDC in their use of technology in response to pandemic
Rahul Mullick, Senior Vice President - Technology
“Aarron hired me as his boss at Resolve and from the very outset, I was amazed at how calm and thoughtful he was. As the Senior Product and Design Lead for our prevent epidemics (PE) work, Aarron brought structured thinking to problem solving, was a great team leader and collaborator. As a partner in digital health thinking, I always got good counsel from Aarron and his depth of experience in Product and Design emerged far and above most. He is a rare combination of someone who is skillful at work and wise in life too.”
US COVID Response
In April of 2020, the Resolve technology team conducted a design sprint to explore how technology and design could be support pandemic response. The thesis at the time was that boxing in the virus through contact tracing would be our most effective strategy. We developed four products that were implemented in public health jurisdictions in various states.
Daniel Burka, Director of Product and Design
“In a time of great pressure in public health, Aarron brought a calm, empathic style that was incredible.
Aarron guided our technology response across a broad range of projects with Africa CDC, with counties in the US, and with states in India. The projects required strong coordination with partners at WHO, Africa CDC, and in governments. Aarron managed to direct the team and rally partners to achieve excellent design and product outcomes in the midst of a pandemic. I appreciated his balance of pragmatic execution with a strategic viewpoint.
I would highly recommend Aarron to any team looking for an empathic leader who can pull together a team to build towards a common vision.”
Africa CDC COVID Hotspot Dashboard
In addition to developing software for contact tracing in the US, my colleagues and I worked with the Africa CDC to create a COVID hotspot dashboard to track COVID cases, tests, deaths, and key indicators defined by epidemiologists to determine outbreak severity. Our dashboard was used by leaders in the Africa CDC and African Union to shape COVID response.
We took a scrappy approach to or work. We used Google Sheets to store data and technologies like Javascript and Node.js to reduce server-side development. We had to work fast as lives were literally at stake. Leaders made decisions to shut down cities and countries using our dashboard.
