Risa collaborates with colleagues in all departments and provides user experience and development expertise. She is continuously evaluating the Foundation’s internal operational applications and public facing website to identify innovative and creative ways to capture and visualize data.
Risa holds an IB diploma from Seisen International School in Tokyo, Japan and a BFA in Visual Communications/Art & Technology studies from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2018, she received a professional development certificate from the Northwestern University School of Professional Studies (SPS) in Data Science and continues to pursue interests in data wrangling, analytics, visualizations, and python data science libraries.
She is a Council on Foundations’ Career Pathways 2023 cohort member, a Green Communities Leadership Institute (GCLI) 2024 cohort member and has been selected into the 2025 Emerging Leaders Initiative (ELI) program for the Technology Association of Grantmakers (TAG). As of 2025, she serves as a board member for TAG and a local nonprofit, Plant Chicago.
In her off hours, she is a certified volunteer TreeKeeper® for Openlands and leads efforts in the Lawndale Little Village region. She supports youth STEAM education at Yollocalli Arts Reach and is a Steering Committee member for the Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP) Chicago chapter.