Andrew Plemmons Pratt here. I am an experienced human-centered designer, educator, curriculum developer, and program builder. I weave together innovation methods and race equity tools to transform civic institutions and systems through rigorous learning.

Most recently, I worked at The Lab @ OPM. This human-centered design shop in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management builds capacity for government organizations to transform their programs and processes by teaching human-centered design and partnering with federal agencies on complex civic challenges. While there did things like:

• Led human-centered design courses for 350+ civil servants at agencies across state and federal governments
• Led the redesign and delivery of our immersive, multi-week flagship Civic Design Studio course
• Wrote a new course on human-centered design fundamentals for civil servants
• Coached federal leaders on implementation of food and nutrition assistance rules, service design for human resources programs, and processes for managing ethics obligations for government employees
• Conducted prototype testing and synthesis with participants to refine a co-designed Trauma-Informed Disaster Recovery Training Program for FEMA emergency responders

Before working as a civil servant, I built and led equity-centered education innovation programs at CityBridge Education.

Check out my full portfolio of civic design and school innovation work below.

I also bake bread, bang on the the piano, play tabletop games, work for racial justice and inclusion in DC public schools, and make things out of fabric, wood, and bits.

The Lab @ OPM (U.S. Office of Personnel Management)

My work at the Lab included developing major human-centered design education programs for federal and state agencies working on food and nutrition, writing new course offerings on civic design, and contributing to projects on issues ranging from disaster response to veterans benefits to cybersecurity. Many of those products remain internal. Below are summaries and blank versions of tools and methods to illustrate core pieces of my work. If you’d like to see more examples, reach out!

Civic Design Studio

“Enjoyed the course immensely. It should be mandatory for all civil servants.” —course participant, September 2024

Civic Design Studio was The Lab’s flagship course on how to apply equitable design to complex challenges in the public sector. I led the immersive, multi-week course in September 2024, orchestrating a team of 7 expert design strategists who facilitated he classes and coached teams.

• 29 participants on 17 teams from 6 states and 8 federal agencies
• 100% of end-of-course survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the course strengthened their ability to frame problems equitably and effectively.

Read more here: Civic Design Studio

Human-Centered Design Fundamentals: Discovery and Sense-making

As a Design Educator at The Lab @ OPM, I worked on a small team to write a new version of our introductory course on human-centered design for civil servants. The instructional approach for the course was grounded in the gradual release model of teaching.