I'm Shiela.

An innovator, a software engineer,

and an educator.

About

Shiela Lee Profile Pic

Hi!

I am a front-end software engineer at JPMorgan Chase. After a rewarding 12 year career as an educator, I transitioned industries to pursue coding. I love building meaningful products and am an innovator who works to align my passions with my skills. I love tinkering and coding ideas that I have. Explore my coding projects in Skills and Tools. Read more about my teaching in Projects.

When I'm not coding or talking with fellow teachers, I enjoy listening to music and playing board games with my daughters.


My Journey

Journey Highlights

Front-End Engineer at JPMorgan Chase- Infatuation

  • Growing my expertise in React, TypeScript, and UI development at scale
  • Building accessible and delightful user interfaces

Chibitronics Head of Education & Associate Software Engineer

  • Developed products under a federally funded grant and wrote code to support the development
  • Collaborated on a new prototype that involved both software and hardware

Hack Reactor Software Enginering Bootcamp

  • Recipient of the Galvanize Scholarship to advance my skills in software engineering
  • Advanced Software Engineering Certificate

STEM & Computer Science PreK-5 Teacher

Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) Equity Fellow

  • Developing equitable teaching practices and advocacy
  • Collaborating with other teachers to address equity in the computer science classroom

Math for America Fellow

  • Master Teacher Fellowship Award
  • Broadening my growth as an educator, contributing to a professional community, and elevating the status of our profession

Special Education Integrated Co-Teaching (ICT) Teacher

  • Orton-Gillingham Certified Instructor
  • Computer Science 4 All (CS4ALL) Teacher Trainer
  • Big Apple Award Finalist

Teachers College, Columbia University

  • MA in Curriculum and Instruction
  • Dual certification to teach students with disabilities and general education students grades 1-6

Fulbright Fellow to Teach English in Taiwan

  • Awarded favorite teacher on Confucius Teacher's Day
  • Started two special English classes for disadvantaged students
  • Co-taught English to grades 1-6 in a public elementary school in Kaohsiung

Grinnell College

  • BA in Philosophy, Cum Laude
  • John H. Worley Endowed Prize in Philosophy

Technical Skills

JavaScript

Python

Git Version Control

React

Html5

FastAPI

PostgreSQL

Django

CSS

Showcase Project: Wellness Whale

A single page wellness application that tracks a person's mood, water intake, meditations, and journal entries. Using Redux/React to dynamically display the information on a progress page, this app stores the data in a PostgresSQL database using FastAPI as its backend. The application was styled with Tailwind CSS. I worked on a team of three other people as we built out this project in three weeks.

Tools

As a software engineer, I like to build tools that are universally designed for learning (UDL) and that help teachers create an accessible and inclusive classroom community. Here are some tools I built for teachers when I was in the classroom.

Station Tool

I designed a tool for my classroom specifically for when I teach using the stations model. I developed this visual tool to help all students know where to go and what to bring to each station.

Interactive 100s Chart

I designed an interactive hundreds chart tool for my students to help them learn about patterns on the hundreds chart and to strengthen their number sense.

Projects

When I was a teacher, I would always love to problem-solve with my students and include innovative projects into the classroom like the ones below.

American Sign Language (ASL)

sign-language-icon sign-language-icon-color
  • Develops fine motor skills
  • Gives access to the deaf community
  • Supports spelling in early childhood

Pen Pal Exchanges in Taiwan, Kenya & USA

Pen Pal Exchanges pen-pal-icon-color
  • Broadens awareness of other ways of life
  • Promotes cultural exchange
  • Develops global citizens

Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness mindfulness-icon-color
  • Brings attention to the present moment
  • Promotes self-awareness
  • Can help with self-regulation

Coding, Robotics, & Physical Computing

Coding coding-icon-color
  • Develops logical thinking
  • Can be integrated across curricular areas
  • Builds persistence and problem solving skills

Contact Me

Teaching Coding
Top of the Rock Teaching

Curious about doing a collaborative project or have a question about the work I do? Feel free to message me!

Message Me