Photo by Ksenia Chernaya on Pexels

Stephanie Hlywak

Dynamic and results-driven senior-level communications professional with a proven track record in earned media, web strategy, content planning, email campaign design, and social media management across diverse sectors, including non-profits and tech startups.

Hello.

Thanks for checking out my portfolio. Over the years, I've really done it all, from thought leadership and executive positioning to multimedia storytelling and media placements.

Here's a sampling of some of the cool stuff I've worked on. (Or, what I like to think of as the receipts.)

Thought Leadership + Executive Positioning + Ghostwriting

Working with business leaders to understand their voice, goals, and audiences, I wrote, edited, and pitched these media placements, which appeared under the executive's byline

CalMatters • January 11 2024

Why visa reforms benefit not just California's tech sector but the economy overall by Vivek Vaidya

Like so many government programs, the H-1B visa is well-intended but flawed in its current form. The reforms most urgently needed would be to increase the number of visas allocated each year and to prioritize employers offering the highest wages.

CDO Magazine • November 22 2023

Why Proprietary Data Is the Linchpin of AI Disruption by Vivek Vaidya

As AI reshapes the business landscape, the true kingmakers are not the models themselves, but the quality and exclusivity of the data powering them. A tech revolution like AI unleashes rapid change, and not every firm or job will survive.

MedCity News • November 22 2023

It’s Time for the Tech Revolution to Come to Mental Health Diagnoses by Andrew Marshak

Patients are often told they have “depression” or display symptoms consistent with “anxiety.” But these are broad and imprecise categories — and using such broad and vague terms would be unthinkable in other areas of medicine. We need to take inspiration from the progress in oncology over the last few decades and challenge ourselves to adapt its successful playbook to mental illness. It’s time for precision psychiatry.

Fast Company • September 5 2023

The musical AI revolution has only just begun by Tom Chavez

Music creators, don’t fear the reaper when it comes to AI: Recognize its potential instead. Rather than put musicians out of work, I believe AI will allow more creators to make more music and explore sonic wavelengths yet unheard. AI will augment the creator’s process to produce art and it will lower barriers to entry for new voices.

New York Daily News • March 30 2023

N.Y.’s failed cannabis rollout: The state dropped the ball on setting up a legal market for marijuana by Rev. Al Sharpton

In the two years since New York legalized adult-use cannabis, the state Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) has licensed 66 retailers in the state, but just five have opened their doors to the public.

Austin American-Statesman • June 26 2022

Opinion: Connecting workers to health care careers is critical by Ross DeVol

There are more job openings than workers in most parts of the country, and in cities like Austin, where the unemployment rate hit a pandemic-low of 2.5% in May 2022, the need for workers is essential. And this trend is even more worrisome for the health care industry.

Chicago Sun-Times • June 23 2022

Now is the time to close the Latino digital divide by Sindy M. Benavides and Angie Cooper

In our country, we no longer light our homes with candles, nor do we draw water from common wells. But while electricity and access to clean drinking water are commonplace in the United States, another basic human right — the ability to fully participate in modern life via affordable, reliable, high-speed internet service — remains out of reach for many.

Edited Reports

As Director of the Marketing and Communications at the American Library Association, I oversaw the research, writing, editing, design, and promotion of the annual "State of America's Libraries Report"

April 1 2022

State of America's Libraries 2022

In 2021, libraries found themselves at the center of a culture war as conservative groups led a historic effort to ban and challenge materials that address racism, gender, politics, and sexual identity. These groups sought to pull books from school and public library shelves that share the stories of people who are gay, trans, Black, Indigenous, people of color, immigrants, and refugees. But we know that banning books won’t make these realities and lived experiences disappear, nor will it erase our nation’s struggles to realize true equity, diversity, and inclusion.

April 2 2021

State of America's Libraries 2021

Every year, The State of America’s Libraries report
aims to present a complete picture of the activities
and trends in libraries of all kinds during the previous
calendar year. This year, we are taking a different
approach. Rather than a broad focus, we have narrowed
our scope, and the result, we hope, provides library
users a more nuanced understanding of the impact of
COVID-19 on libraries in their schools, communities,
and campuses and offers library workers, and everyone
associated with the profession, some insight into best
practices during an extraordinary and challenging year.

My Writing

Articles published under my own byline about tech, design, publishing, libraries, and academia.

Institute of Design • February 23 2024

Simplifying Medication Adherence with Thoughtful Design

Solutions to improve medication adherence are necessary and life-saving. From day-of-the-week pill boxes to alarms and other interventions, patients have been creative—and yet still unsuccessful—about remembering to take their medications.

How might we develop a user-friendly system for managing medication routines that blends seamlessly into daily life?

Institute of Design • February 23 2024

Improving Wildfire Communications and Outcomes with Generative AI

Wildfires can destroy habitats, decimate hometowns, and take a significant human toll. Given the stakes—and the likelihood that these natural disasters will continue to be an increasing threat in years to come—what role can technology play in better preparing and warning people about fire risks?

How can we better prepare and warn people about fire risks? How can we harness AI for human needs?

Institute of Design • February 22 2024

Enhancing Pet Wellbeing Through Generative AI

What if there were a solution that allowed pet owners to continually monitor their pet’s health while also guiding them through complex veterinary health care considerations? That’s the question three ID students started with when considering their current or past experiences as pet owners.

Institute of Design • February 22 2024

Revitalizing Chicago’s Union Station

Chicago’s Union Station is both a functional marvel and a historic relic. Named a Chicago landmark in 2002 and designated one of “America’s Great Places” in 2012 by the American Planning Association, it saw nearly 44 million entries and exits in 2018, making it the fourth busiest station in the country.

Institute of Design • February 15 2024

Using Behavioral Science to Encourage Sustainable Food Consumption

Building on her role as academic advisor to Food for Climate League (FCL)—an Evanston-based non-profit organization that integrates human-centered design, behavioral science, and communication strategies to develop evidence-based approaches for climate-sustainable food production and consumption practices—Associate Professor Ruth Schmidt partnered with the organization to design a semester-long challenge: to develop compelling, behaviorally-designed approaches to increasing bean, legume, and pulse consumption by combining insight into user needs and perceptions, findings from behavioral science, and systems-level strategies.

Institute of Design • December 8 2023

Building Connections to Native Culture Through Interactive Design

At the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UH Mānoa), non-native Hawaiian students make up roughly 85 percent of the undergraduate student population. Its history, as an institution, is also deeply connected to the history of colonialism on the island; the university opened its doors less than 10 years after the United States annexed Hawaiʻi in 1898.

It’s an apt space, then, to explore ways of connecting traditional knowledge with modern realities. Can we seamlessly integrate these concepts in a gamified way to elicit students’ interest in the significance of Native Hawaiian culture?

Institute of Design • December 7 2023

Exploring Controlled Environment Agriculture

The agricultural systems of the 20th century that fed the world are ill-equipped to meet our food needs in the 21st century. Forget the bucolic red barn and sprawling acreage of rural farming. To feed our growing population, farming will take place in new spaces that may look more like distribution centers in the exurbs or large warehouses near major transportation hubs. What’s more—those buildings may not house typical crops; they could be harvesting crickets. But more on that later.

Institute of Design • December 6 2023

Combating Climate Misinformation

How does misinformation about climate change enter our media ecosystem? How does it spread? And is there anything climate journalists can do to counter this propaganda?

Eva Althaus (MDM 2024) doesn’t believe climate misinformation is an accident—but she does think that design can combat it. So she investigated the systems that support the transfer of this misinformation to better understand how the voices of climate journalists, i.e., believers in climate science, can break through the noise.

Institute of Design • December 4 2023

Future Archetypes of EV Charging

Electric vehicles (EVs) are the future of driving, but we’re still not ready for them. Today America’s roads and infrastructure are better suited to traditional fossil fuel-burning cars and trucks. In 2021, EVs accounted for less than two percent of new vehicle registrations in the US, according to PWC. Still, adoption is accelerating, and in order for the EV market share to increase, the obstacles to ownership—among them lack of public charging infrastructure, slow charging times, and the high cost of batteries—have to be addressed.

FSCNOW • May 2 2022

Daring to Dream

“Always have a Plan A. And a Plan B. And also a Plan C.”
That advice from FSC education counselor Ken Grotell has stuck with Mario Mejia. And it served him well, he says, as he prepared to graduate from SUNY Upstate Medical University in May 2022 and enter the professional world as a doctor of physical therapy.

FSCNOW • May 2 2022

The Hands-On Approach

Many iconic American companies got their start in garages. From Microsoft and Apple to Amazon and Hewlett-Packard, many global businesses started small—really small. But CEO Chloe Hung (BS, Management Technology '06) may be the first to lead one that started in a house behind a gas station.

FSCNOW • May 1 2022

Employing Top Talent

Oniel Cross came to the United States from Jamaica when he was 19 to go to college and launch his professional career. With plans to study computers and the goal of working in cybersecurity, Cross looked at several schools before selecting Farmingdale. Among his criteria: a school where he could work full time, finish his courses quickly, and study with top-notch professors. FSC fit the bill perfectly, and he enrolled in 2000.

FSCNOW • May 1 2022

A Laboratory Romance

The late Violet Adair ('59), mother, grandmother, accomplished plant scientist, and beloved wife of Dr. Charles Adair, Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, is being remembered through a $100,000 scholarship fund for first-generation students established by her husband.

FSCNOW • May 1 2022

Engineering a Better Future

The last time Murray Pasternack set foot on the Farmingdale State College campus was June 1960. It was graduation day, and it was raining. More than 60 years later, the California transplant who left New York in 1965 found himself back on somewhat familiar ground.

Institute of Design • April 15 2022

Preventing Foodborne Illnesses, One Industrial Kitchen at a Time

One of the greatest public health interventions of our time isn’t a vaccine or pill: it’s handwashing. When done properly, it can prevent many illnesses and save countless lives.

Institute of Design • April 13 2022

ID Students Win 2022 Rotman Design Challenge

ID students won the 2022 Rotman Design Challenge, a prestigious global competition organized by the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management that brings together top talent from leading business and design schools to propose solutions to complex business challenges. ID students have placed first several times since the challenge was introduced, and came in second place last year.

American Libraries Magazine • January 22 2022

Mazie K. Hirono Opens Inaugural LibLearnX | American Libraries Magazine

Touching on themes of Asian American leadership, the immigrant experience, and women’s role in positions of power, the opening session of LibLearnX featured a thoughtful and often personal discussion between US Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawaii) and ALA President Patricia “Patty” M. Wong.
Both women represent important firsts for the organizations they represent. Hirono is the first female senator to represent Hawaii and the only first-generation immigrant to serve in the Senate; she was born i...

Institute of Design • June 22 2021

Greening the Electricity System

As consumers, we rarely think about electricity—until it isn’t there. We plug a cord into an outlet and expect it to produce power. But the system that delivers energy to our phones, appliances, and lights is built on 150-year-old technology that’s being pushed to its limits. And when the system gets overloaded, the results can be devastating.

Institute of Design • June 1 2021

What Your Semi-Autonomous Driving Experience Might Look Like

While we may be closer than ever to realizing this long-held dream, the transition to roads populated solely by self-driving cars won’t happen instantaneously. Instead, there will likely be a period where semi-autonomous vehicles—controlled by both a human driver and automation in the vehicle—will commingle with human-driven vehicles and automated vehicles on our highways and on our city streets. How can we navigate this transition safely while also encouraging sustainable habits?

Institute of Design • March 31 2021

Transforming Chicago’s Food Ecosystem for Everyone’s Benefit

Few essential systems are as invisible to consumers as the food production and distribution infrastructure in the US. Shoppers take for granted that produce, meats, and packaged foods will be waiting for them at the grocery store, and diners are largely unaware of the journey their restaurant meal took to get to their plates. But to designers, these complex systems are ripe for study—and improvement.

ASAE • June 7 2020

How to Pivot Your Marketing Campaigns During a Pandemic

What happens when you’re about to launch a public awareness campaign encouraging the public to visit libraries and a pandemic strikes? You pivot, like the American Library Association did. Four lessons they learned can help you do the same.

American Libraries Magazine • October 30 2019

Library Advocates Deliver Ebook Petition to Macmillan | American Libraries Magazine

On October 30 a group of library advocates carried posters and bankers’ boxes full of petitions through the crowded streets of Lower Manhattan to the Equitable Building at 120 Broadway, the home of Macmillan Publishers. Their goal: deliver the signatures of the nearly 160,000 people who have visited ebooksforall.org over the past seven weeks to demand that the publisher reverse its intended ebooks embargo, scheduled to take effect November 1.

American Libraries Magazine • September 13 2019

Wrapping Up Digital Book World 2019 | American Libraries Magazine

Digital Book World 2019, held September 10–12 in Nashville, Tennessee, closed with conversations about the future of libraries with David Burleigh, director of brand marketing and communication at Rakuten OverDrive, and Mary Ghikas, executive director of the American Library Association (ALA).

American Libraries Magazine • April 11 2019

ACRL Opens with Michele Norris | American Libraries Magazine

For National Public Radio fans, it’s a treat to see the people behind the voices that keep us company and keep us informed. Few listeners would have any trouble pronouncing Michele Norris’s first name, having heard her gentle stress on the first syllable over the years as the host of All Things Considered.

Video Production + Storyboarding + Scripting

One of my favorite aspects of multimedia storytelling is getting to sit across the camera from fascinating people and then use their stories to distill complex ideas. This section consists of a mix of videos that I've either directed, produced, or written.

Media placements

Over the course of my career, I've placed hundreds of news stories from the pages of the New York Times to local newspapers and industry trades. This is a very small sampling of those placements.