LJR

Hello and welcome to my website! My name is Lexi Jen Ryan, and I'm a Technologist & Product Strategist living in New York City. With a background bridging Computer Science and Linguistics, my professional interests live at the intersection of natural language processing, machine learning, and human-centric design. I love building tools where structured logic meets human expression—whether that's designing a long-term product roadmap or diving into computational data. Most recently, I worked in Technical Product Management at the Bank of New York.

I hail from Southborough, Massachusetts. Between high school and college, I took a gap year in Manhattan studying musical theatre performance. Though I decided not to continue with theatre, I did fall in love with the Big Apple, where I now live with my cat Havana. Today, I'm privileged to be able to experience the magic of Broadway as an audience member, seeing roughly two shows per month. You can also catch me on the dance floor practicing social dances such as Conta, Blues, Swing, and Fusion dance.

Headshot
Havana, my beautiful cat
Havana, my beautiful cat

Resume

Education

Sep 2017 – Jun 2021
Northwestern University
  • Computer Science Major and Linguistics Major.   Dean's List.   3.7 GPA.
  • Selected Courses: Natural Language Processing, Linear Algebra and Multivariable Calculus, Data Structures and Algorithms, Intro to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Object-Oriented Programming in C++, Semantics, Syntax, Phonetics & Phonology, Sociolinguistics
  • Semester in Paris: Fall 2019
Aug 2009 – Jun 2016
Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School
  • 4.6 weighted GPA.   SAT: 2380.   National Merit Scholar.   National AP Scholar.
  • Distinguished Young Woman of Massachusetts 2016 Scholastic Award recipient.
  • Writing Awards: Best of SNO, Creative Communications Poetry Contest (2-time winner), Scholastic Art and Writing Award Silver Key.

Work Experience

Jun 2024 – Jul 2026
Bank of New York, Vice President, Product Owner

New York City, NY

  • Lead product owner for production services and reporting-adjacent workflows within a $43MM client contract.
  • Translated complex operational and financial requirements into structured epics and user stories; design workflow and reporting mockups in Figma, Excel, and PowerPoint used across client engagements.
  • Drove continuous improvement across production incidents, change requests, data quality issues, and workflow validation—improving traceability and reducing exceptions through streamlined JIRA processes.
  • Built strategic content and demo agentic model for AI-driven operational efficiency proposals, delivering visually compelling presentations to support innovation initiatives.
  • Defined and implemented product-led onboarding strategies for global teams, ensuring high consistency in legacy-to-modern system migrations.
  • Oversaw application migration effort, aligning engineering, QA, client stakeholders, and vendor teams across multiple environments.
Aug 2021 – Jun 2024
Bank of New York, Lead Technology Product Manager

New York City, NY

  • Coordinated development of award-winning company intranet reaching 40,000+ employees across developers, Product Owner, and dozens of business and technical stakeholders as Project Manager and Scrum Master, leading to the release of 24 new features and bug fixes.
  • Mediated cross-functional team of stakeholders across eight groups to identify and prioritize requirements and responsibilities to improve overall internal search experience via technical and process-based solutions and to roll out internal chatbot.
  • Conducted user interviews, wrote user stories, managed user acceptance testing, and designed feedback surveys to understand and improve user experience.
  • Articulated vision, strategy, metrics, and roadmap for diverse audiences.
  • Operations lead for Women in Technology New York Chapter.
Sep 2020 – Jun 2021
Northwestern University, Research Assistant

Evanston, IL

  • Predicted opioid use and high-risk behaviors based on Reddit data using machine learning models.
  • Analyzed gender bias in movie reviews and scripts based on connotation frames.
Summer 2020
Amazon, Software Development Engineering Intern

Seattle, WA (Remote)

  • Owned the development of a tool enhancement with an existing Java codebase to provide more accurate and granular latency metrics for Fire TV devices from user research to design to implementation.
  • Provided React frontend visualization to minimize developer time seeking root cause for latency issues.
  • Led a Hackathon team in developing an Alexa Skill to aid incoming interns in pre-onboarding.
Summer 2019
Bose Corporation, NLP Intern

Framingham, MA

  • Created a rule-based text categorization service to identify wishlist features from unstructured review data using ElasticSearch.
  • Led the design and creation of a topic aggregation service via word embeddings.
  • Built and trained a machine learning aspect-based sentiment analysis tool using BERT.
  • Constructed dashboards and created and led tutorials for various teams across Bose in using Kibana tools.
Summer 2018
Lodo Therapeutics, Bioinformatics Research Assistant

New York City, NY

  • Independently designed and implemented packages and tools in R for data processing and visualization, employing regular expressions and Shiny, identifying over 4,500 data inconsistencies and correcting nearly 3000
  • Worked with devOps team to expand version control (git), continuous integration (Drone), and cloud storage (AWS) processes
  • Conducted supervised lab work: executed PCR, restriction digest, ligation, and transformations
  • See my breakdown of my work here: Blog 1  and here: Blog 2

Extracurriculars

Contra Dancing
  • I began contra dancing in college at the Irish American Heritage Center in Chicago.
  • I regularly volunteer for both of New York City's two regular contra dances: Country Dance New York (CDNY) in Manhattan and Brooklyn Contra (BKC) in Brooklyn.
  • I have contra danced in Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and California. I love attending dance weekends, both specific to contra and broader.
  • CDNY Website
  • BKC Website
    • Attending Theatre
  • I see most shows running on Broadway, as well as a smattering of Off- or Off-Off-Broadway shows.
  • My Show-Score Account
    • Happiness Club
  • Co-Chair of Happiness Club, the first organization I joined on campus as a freshman.
  • Chiefly responsible for the planning and conducting of events designed to make campus a happier place, including major events such as a Welcome Bonfire, Pie a Professor, and Happiness Week, and weekly events such as movie nights and capture the flag games. Responsible for facilitating contact with our more than 1000 members via a weekly email.
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
    • Seesaw Theatre
  • Director, teaching artist, cast member, and adventure guide with Seesaw Theatre, a student theatre group that devises and performs sensory theatrical performances designed for autistic and otherwise disabled children.
  • Executive Board Member as the Spring Director and Head Adventure Guide, where I guided other TAs in best practices for engaging our audiences. The Head Adventure Guide acts as Assistant Director for both Seesaw's seasonal stage productions.
  • Cast member in various Seesaw stage productions. In Winter 2018, I was a Snow Buddy in Snow Day. In Spring 2018, I was The Fawn in Wanderland. In Winter 2019, I was a Cowgirl in Rockin' Rodeo.
  • As a TA, I oversaw drama workshops for disabled children at local schools.
  • Website
    • Hackathons
  • Check out my GitHub page to see my projects!
  • Thought Jar (Best Beginner Hack at BuildHer 2018): designed and built an iPhone app in React Native that provides users with a daily positive thought and space to reflect.
  • HeartBeat (Best Design at ByteHacks 2018): designed and built a website that provides a Spotify playlist customized by users’ moods, which can be determined by facial recognition. Technologies used include HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Google Cloud Platform, Google Vision, Python, and Flask.
  • Intern Prep (Team Lead at Internal Amazon Hackathon 2020): designed and built an Alexa Skill with a conversational interface to provide incoming interns with a countdown to their start date and relevant tips based on how much time remains.
    • .dev Competition
  • Winner: First Place
  • Led a team in developing an iPhone app to store and calculate users’ family relations. Worked as Project Lead and on frontend, using React Native.
    • Women in Computing Club
  • I was a member of Northwestern's WiC from September 2018 to 2021. As a senior, I mentored a freshman Computer Science major.
    • Technological Innovations for Inclusive Learning & Teaching Lab
  • I was a research assistant on the FamJam! making project of TIILT lab. I facilitated projects among families using technological tools like 3D pens and paper circuits and took field notes.
  • Website
    • Smoke & Mirrors Magic Club
  • I was Vice President of Northwestern's magic club Smoke & Mirrors. I performed in our annual Spring magic show in both 2018 and 2019.
    • Chi Omega Sorority
  • I joined Chi Omega in January 2018.
    • Theater Performance
  • I have trained and performed in dance, vocal performance, and theater since the age of 5. See my former theatre resume here: Resume

    • Projects

    Please see the Projects tab at the top of the page for a full rundown of my projects. See a summary of projects and events in the timeline below.