I work on ambitious ideas and programs to build a more responsive, equitable government for the many.
Jennifer Gardner is a people-centered problem solver and leader in civic design, public policy, and urban planning with more than 15 years of experience helping organizations meet the needs of their customers and deliver transformative results across government, nonprofit, and private-sector settings. She builds and scales ambitious initiatives at the intersection of design, data, technology, and public systems, working across local, state, and federal levels to translate complex policy goals into practical, measurable outcomes. Whether managing digital products or designing large-scale infrastructure programs, Jennifer brings a human-centered lens and genuine curiosity to discovery, design, prototyping, and implementation. Her equity-centered approach has shaped work from founding New York City’s Community Parks Initiative—closing a $1B investment gap and transforming more than 160 parks by 2032—to advancing national programs as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow and strategist at The Lab at OPM. Grounded in a background in urban policy, planning, and design, Jennifer designs for people and for impact at the scale of neighborhoods, cities, and systems.
Jennifer holds a Master's in City and Regional Planning from Pratt Institute, where she focused on community development and strategies for equitable urban transformation. She graduated with honors from Cornell University, where she studied English and German literature and art history. She has attended the Free University in Berlin, Stanford Engineering's School of Continuing Studies, and participated in Coro Leadership New York, a leadership development program for mid-career civic leaders. Most recently, Jennifer served as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow with the U.S. Small Business Administration.
What I Do
As a Presidential Innovation Fellow at the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), I served as a senior technology advisor shaping strategy and digital products for the MySBA customer experience initiative, an agency-wide effort to help the SBA keep pace with the 21st century and update the tools that America's small business owners, entrepreneurs, and disaster survivors use to interact with the agency. Working closely with SBA's front office, Chief Information and Technology Officers, and a team of technologists, I guided key organizational decisions, advising senior leadership on agency-wide policy initiatives while leading the design and delivery of a new digital customer portal.
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Managed federal agency projects worth $1.175 million over 5 years, leading teams and advisory groups
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Developed the Inclusive Healthy Places Framework through an 18-month, $500k multi-stakeholder process for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
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Created the Community Parks Initiative as a staff planner with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, developing a multi-million dollar investment in more equitable access to quality neighborhood parks across NYC, collaborating across agency silos to drive delivery of the capital planning, community engagement, and concept design work leading to the transformation of 70 parks
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Delivered as an independent contractor with an annual consulting pipeline of $100k
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I developed the Inclusive Healthy Places Framework, an original, research-backed evaluation tool and publication that offers a way for practitioners in the urban design, policy, and public health fields to speak a shared language about the real benefits and proven strategies for investing in the public realm to achieve equitable and inclusive health outcomes. With support from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, my team of 7 worked with over 30 collaborators to translate applied and academic research from across disciplines and understand gaps in the field to develop our solution. I secured a $250k renewal grant to extend the work into new phases and host a convening to launch our report, bringing together 25 global experts and seeding further collaboration, resulting in adoption of the product by states and advocacy and design organizations.
Most recently, I’ve turned this work into a book chapter in the 8th edition of The City Reader (forthcoming 2025) that will reach tens of thousands of university students.
At NYC Parks, I spearheaded efforts to amplify the impact of projects and programs within my portfolio by identifying opportunities for funding, in-kind support, and service design improvements, leading to:
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$450M in capital investment to fully transform, not just fix, nearly 80 large and small parks through partnerships with hundreds of stakeholders and thousands of community members
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Transformation of the agency's public engagement process, connecting the agency's non-profit engagement arm to the planning process for the first time, pitching funding requests for outreach staff, and reaching over 3,400 community members in public meetings for two key programs; this approach was adopted by the agency's capital division as a new SOP
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A $3M+ research partnership with CUNY’s School of Public Health leading to a first of its kind, longitudinal study of community health impacts of small neighborhood park improvements
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Expansion of funding in subsequent years; today, $1 billion is committed to the Community Parks Initiative through 2032
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I created a program supporting a data standard for measuring human activity in public space. Working with Gehl Architects and cities of San Francisco, Copenhagen, and Seattle, I helped advance validation, testing, and adoption. I facilitated programming and sponsorship for a 3-day hackathon with 115 participants that led to a partnership with Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs to build Common Space, a data collection app that our team went on to field test with a local partner in Toronto. This extensive in-kind support was secured through MOUs and governance strategies.
My Approach
I'm always excited to immerse myself in a new problem—the learning curve is my happy place. As a career generalist with a taste for navigating complexity, I'm an asset to organizations and teams working on big ideas and new programs and products.
I focus on systems and learning to find opportunities for strategic advancement at every stage of an engagement. I can be found diligently framing problems and crafting right-sized discovery strategies to kickstart project work, facilitating stakeholder alignment workshops, working with visual and UI design teams to refine wireframes, trying new ways of measuring customer journeys through user and desktop research, and introducing methods and experts from academia and other fields of practice to solve problems.
Expertise
Domains
Urban Planning and Policy Urban Design Customer Experience Public Policy Public Realm Social Infrastructure Community Development Economic Development Civic Design Sustainability Equity Civic Engagement Gender in Urban Design
Experience
Disciplines
Design & Strategy - Service Design - Human-Centered Design - UX Strategy - Content Strategy - Information Architecture - Participatory Design - Systems Thinking Planning & Development - Strategic Planning - Program Design - Prototyping - Foresight - Accessibility Product & Program Leadership - Product Management - Program Management - Project Management - Design Operations - Change Management - Evaluation - Client Relations User Research - Qualitative Research - User Research - Usability Research Engagement - Facilitation - Outreach Strategy - Translation/Localization Spatial & Environmental Design - Public Space Planning - Park Design - Placemaking - Land Use and Zoning Documentation - Technical and Creative Writing and Editing - Visual Artifacts
Practice
Methods
Primary Research & Data Collection - Discovery Ground Research - Interviews - Group Interviews - Ethnographic Research - Observational Research - Public Life Surveys Secondary Research & Analysis - Desktop Research - Public Data Analysis - Case Studies - Comparative Analysis - GIS Synthesis & Mapping - Research Synthesis - Journey Mapping - Process Mapping - Stakeholder Mapping Collaborative Methods - Facilitated Workshops - Collaborative Brainstorming - Card Sorting Design & Prototyping - Ideation - Wireframes - Storyboards - Mock-ups/Click-through Prototypes - Low/Medium-Fidelity Prototypes Strategic Planning & Frameworks - Stakeholder Alignment - Design Principles - Scenarios - Theories of Change - DAGs (Directed Acyclic Graphs) - Backcasting Metrics & Measurement - Evaluation Frameworks - Program Metrics - Journey-level Metrics - Experience Metrics
Tools
Software +
Adobe Suite MURAL Airtable Excel Slack/Teams Figma Jira Plus... Language - German Language - Basic Spanish Language - Basic French
Publications & Speaking
Selected
Publications
Gardner J. "Designing Inclusive Healthy Places" (2025). In R.T. Legates, F. Stout & R. Caves (Eds.), The City Reader (8th ed.). Taylor and Francis.
Gardner J., Lorah, K. “The Post-Pandemic City is a City for Women: Two Ways to Move Towards a More Equitable City for Caregivers.” Urban Design Forum, Oct. 2020.
Gardner J., Begault L. “How Better Urban Planning Can Improve Gender Equity.” Behavioral Scientist, April 9, 2019.
Gardner J. “The Inclusive Healthy Places Framework: A New Tool for Social Resilience and Public Infrastructure.” Biophilic Cities Journal, March 2019.
Gardner J, Begault L., Marpillero-Colomina A. “Inclusive Healthy Places: A Guide to Inclusion and Health in Public Space.” Gehl Institute, June 2018.
Contributing editor: NYC Parks “Design and Planning for Flood Resiliency: Guidelines for NYC Parks,” November 2018.
Huang TT, Wyka KE, Ferris EB, Gardner J, Evenson KR, Tripathi D, Martinez Soto G, Cato M, Moon J, Dorn, JM, Catellier DJ, Thorpe LE. “The Physical Activity and Redesigned Community Spaces (PARCS) Study: protocol of a natural experiment to investigate the impact of citywide park redesign and renovation.” BMC Public Health, November 2016.
Gardner J. “Framework for an Equitable Future.” NYC Parks, October 2014.
Gardner J, Lubinsky A, Salama P. “EV-Ready Codes for the Built Environment,” “Creating EV-Ready Towns and Cities: A Guide to Planning and Policy Tools,” and “Siting and Design Guidelines for Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment.” Georgetown Climate Center and the Transportation Climate Initiative, Nov 2012.
Selected
Keynotes, Panels & Workshops
Facilitator and Course Designer, workshops including Human-Centered Design Fundamentals, Civic Design Studio, Problem Framing for Solution Finding, and Designing Accessible Communications, the Lab at OPM, 2020-2024
Panelist, “Public Space Design + Research: Gauging Gender + Sexuality Inequities.” American Institute of Architects, New York. Remote workshop, April 2022
Speaker and session moderator, “Toward Health Equity,” American Planning Association National Planning Conference, San Francisco, April 2019
Keynote speaker, “A People-First Approach to Healthy Cities through Design,” Planning Our Urban Environments: From Research to Practice: ISGlobal Health Summit, Barcelona, November 2018
Workshop facilitator and panelist, “A People-First Approach to Social Change through Design,” Placemaking Latinoamérica, Querétaro and Mexico City, November 2018
Keynote speaker, “Public Life Intersections: Change through Design,” Seoul Second Annual Social Problem-Solving Design Forum, Seoul, September 2018
Workshop lead and panelist, “Healthy Cities,” World Cities Summit, Singapore, July 2018
Event planner and lead facilitator, Inclusive Healthy Places 2-day launch workshop, Newark, NJ, June 2018
Workshop facilitator, “Sharing the City: Connecting Urban Design with Public Life,” AIA 2018 National Conference, New York, June 2018
Event planner and lead facilitator, We Count! Public Life Data Hackathon, New York, NY, May 2018
Workshop lead and panelist, International Conference on Urban Health, Coimbra, Portugal, September 2017
Speaker, “Parks and Public Spaces in the Equitable City,” Parks Without Borders Summit, New York, May 2016
Content Design Lead, Parks Without Borders Summit, New York, May 2016
Selected
Publications
Gardner J. "Designing Inclusive Healthy Places" (2025). In R.T. Legates, F. Stout & R. Caves (Eds.), The City Reader (8th ed.). Taylor and Francis.
Gardner J., Lorah, K. “The Post-Pandemic City is a City for Women: Two Ways to Move Towards a More Equitable City for Caregivers.” Urban Design Forum, Oct. 2020.
Gardner J., Begault L. “How Better Urban Planning Can Improve Gender Equity.” Behavioral Scientist, April 9, 2019.
Gardner J. “The Inclusive Healthy Places Framework: A New Tool for Social Resilience and Public Infrastructure.” Biophilic Cities Journal, March 2019.
Gardner J, Begault L., Marpillero-Colomina A. “Inclusive Healthy Places: A Guide to Inclusion and Health in Public Space.” Gehl Institute, June 2018.
Contributing editor: NYC Parks “Design and Planning for Flood Resiliency: Guidelines for NYC Parks,” November 2018.
Huang TT, Wyka KE, Ferris EB, Gardner J, Evenson KR, Tripathi D, Martinez Soto G, Cato M, Moon J, Dorn, JM, Catellier DJ, Thorpe LE. “The Physical Activity and Redesigned Community Spaces (PARCS) Study: protocol of a natural experiment to investigate the impact of citywide park redesign and renovation.” BMC Public Health, November 2016.
Gardner J. “Framework for an Equitable Future.” NYC Parks, October 2014.
Gardner J, Lubinsky A, Salama P. “EV-Ready Codes for the Built Environment,” “Creating EV-Ready Towns and Cities: A Guide to Planning and Policy Tools,” and “Siting and Design Guidelines for Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment.” Georgetown Climate Center and the Transportation Climate Initiative, Nov 2012.
Selected
Keynotes, Panels & Workshops
Facilitator and Course Designer, workshops including Human-Centered Design Fundamentals, Civic Design Studio, Problem Framing for Solution Finding, and Designing Accessible Communications, the Lab at OPM, 2020-2024
Panelist, “Public Space Design + Research: Gauging Gender + Sexuality Inequities.” American Institute of Architects, New York. Remote workshop, April 2022
Speaker and session moderator, “Toward Health Equity,” American Planning Association National Planning Conference, San Francisco, April 2019
Keynote speaker, “A People-First Approach to Healthy Cities through Design,” Planning Our Urban Environments: From Research to Practice: ISGlobal Health Summit, Barcelona, November 2018
Workshop facilitator and panelist, “A People-First Approach to Social Change through Design,” Placemaking Latinoamérica, Querétaro and Mexico City, November 2018
Keynote speaker, “Public Life Intersections: Change through Design,” Seoul Second Annual Social Problem-Solving Design Forum, Seoul, September 2018
Workshop lead and panelist, “Healthy Cities,” World Cities Summit, Singapore, July 2018
Event planner and lead facilitator, Inclusive Healthy Places 2-day launch workshop, Newark, NJ, June 2018
Workshop facilitator, “Sharing the City: Connecting Urban Design with Public Life,” AIA 2018 National Conference, New York, June 2018
Event planner and lead facilitator, We Count! Public Life Data Hackathon, New York, NY, May 2018
Workshop lead and panelist, International Conference on Urban Health, Coimbra, Portugal, September 2017
Speaker, “Parks and Public Spaces in the Equitable City,” Parks Without Borders Summit, New York, May 2016
Content Design Lead, Parks Without Borders Summit, New York, May 2016