Alumni Spotlight: EChO
"Active transportation route app" and "helps residents quickly and safely navigate the District on a bike or scooter" both imply routing functionality that isn't quite there yet. Something like "multimodal navigation app" and "helps residents find and navigate car-free options across the District" might be more accurate.
As a member of one of the 65 percent of Washington, D.C., households that are car-free or car-light, EChO (Eleanor Claire-Higgins Ory, Ph.D.) says she has “spent way more time than I should finding out how I’m going to get places” on her bike or scooter.
In the same way, EChO spent a lot of time pursuing the best career path.
But through data science and The Upskilling Labs, EChO has discovered a rejuvenating new career as she created a multimodal navigation app called RideFlow DC that helps residents find and navigate car-free options across the District.
Based in the District, The Upskilling Labs is a fast-growing civic learning community bringing together mission-driven professionals to explore how emerging tech and skill sharing can unlock new value for local communities. As part of the DC Public Library & Levy AI Upskilling Lab Inaugural Cohort (selected from more than 200 applicants), EChO led a cross-functional team of seven former federal workers and contractors who built RideFlow DC from scratch.
“There are still ways you can build projects that are mission-focused, the way you did in government, and there’s a need for those projects and I highly encourage anyone to find that type of engagement,” EChO says. “I think the Upskilling Labs is an excellent place, and I keep recommending it to people who worked for government or adjacent.”
After receiving her undergraduate degree in engineering from Smith College in Northampton, Mass., and her Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of Maryland, College Park, EChO focused her postdoctoral research on cancer at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She first worked as a Science Officer for the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program through Goldbelt Frontier LLC, a business development company that supports various operations, projects, and services across government, Department of Defense military services, and commercial industries.
EChO’s dream job was to be a staff scientist at the National Institutes of Health, but the impact of the political climate on federal jobs made her realize it wasn’t a viable career path. So, she transitioned into data science and completed the MIT Applied Data Science Program in June 2025.
“Two career changes in less than three years,” EChO says. “And to go full data scientist, I needed a project portfolio.”
EChO took advantage of the opportunities provided by The Upskilling Labs to create an intricate app that addressed “something that had bothered me a long time” – the enormous amount of time it takes determining the safest and fastest way to get around the District on a bike or scooter.
The prototype that EChO’s team presented at DC Startup and Tech Week this past October featured sample preset routing and currently shows real-time information for all transit and cycling options in one place. The ultimate goal, EChO says, is to seamlessly provide safety-first routing that combines public transit with active and micro transit options.
A sister project, RideScore DC, will eventually enable routing for RideFlow DC and provide a safety score for every street segment in the District. While RideFlow is a separate project – EChO is exploring a potential startup path with that – RideScore DC lives within Civic Tech DC as a non-profit project.
While working on her AI-partnered projects, EChO also teaches circus arts, including aerial acrobatics. She says there are obvious parallels between aerial arts and her headfirst dive into data science, and she encourages others, particularly displaced federal workers, to consider the same leap.
Photographer Ruth Judson captures Echo suspended in air—May 2024.
“As a team leader I brought from my aerial arts a sense of fearless exploration, playfulness, and curiosity, and that’s what’s going to bring joy and how you’re going to learn. It is super stressful and hard, but it’s good to have a supportive community like The Upskilling Labs that understands that grief and provides you with continuing education.”