Lawrence Weru
- Researcher, Consultant, and Digital Storyteller
- Dean's Scholar alumnus @ Harvard Medical School (SM '23)
- "Notable Nole" alumnus @ Florida State University (BA, BS)
"To extend our reach to the stars above."
As Seen In
DISCLAIMER: No party contained in the above "As Seen In" list is intended nor is to be construed to constitute an endorsement, agency, partnership, joint venture or other form of joint enterprise, employment or fiduciary relationship, unless expressly stated.
Before we had smart phones, laptops, or even wifi and broadband, when we had to go to the library to surf the web, Gmail, YouTube and Facebook didn't exist, and AOL and Yahoo! were the cool tech companies — basically before I was a teenager — I coded my first website.
It was just for fun at the time, a digital art project, but I owe my 22 years of web development experience to this early curiosity at the intersection of technology and art. My programming skills matured during my undergraduate years at Florida State, where I studied full-stack web development with the Program in Interdisciplinary Computing while completing my interdisciplinary training in Studio Art and Biology. As a Dean's Scholar at Harvard Medical School (HMS), I explored how digital media can be leveraged in behavior change interventions and was in the first graduating class at HMS to earn a Master of Science (S.M.) degree, concentrating in Media, Medicine, and Health.
Along the way I've served as a speaker and panelist at several public and private events, including educational instututions such as Harvard, Florida State University, and University of South Florida.
Research
I serve as an Associate in Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. My work at the HIDIVE Lab under Dr. Nils Gehlenborg focuses on tackling the barriers in digital accessibility that prevent people with disabilities from fully engaging with biomedical resources. Prior to this role I served as a Research Assistant for the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. I worked under Dr. Jay Winsten on Project Look Out, a media-based public health intervention aimed at reducing pedestrian-driver collisions, in partnership with General Motors, Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition, and the City of Boston Transportation Department.
Consulting
Thirteen of my web development years are in a professional environment, beginning with a software engineering internship at Datamaxx Group in Florida, and then becoming an independent consultant. As a consultant I've managed multi-month e-commerce development projects for medium-sized clients such as Tropic Isle Living, coordinating online storefront development with their in-house design and marketing teams, consulting with stakeholders and executives, and making sure projects finish on time and within budget. I've consulted for boutique branding agencies such as Understory Studio, and designers such as Ben Rummel. I've also developed my own apps — one that is currently available for purchase on Apple's Mac App Store. In 2018 I began helping multiple Shopify-based merchants better serve their customers as an e-commerce development consultant.
Storytelling
I write stories at the intersection of society and technology, sometimes for Slate, Vox, and other mainstream publications, and sometimes for my blog STEM Lounge. My contributions are highlighted by Forbes, the Harvard University Gazette and Fast Company, cited in computer science books published by the No Starch Press, and are the subject of my TEDx talk.
Selected Client Work
I come from a full-stack background with a strong understanding of client-server interaction and I specialize in front-end Shopify development. I'll often partner up with designers to collaborate on large-scale site-wide redesigns that require custom sections (Liquid theme development), app integrations, and Shopify Plus features (Custom checkout, Scripts). While my primary activity in this space is programming, I find that my Studio Art and digital product design background makes it easy to collaborate with other designers. I have experience with industry tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma, etc, and I have a good eye for the "little things" like margins, font weight, visual hierarchy, etc, resulting in less need for back and forth when a design has to be pixel perfect.
