Ally Marecek
This portfolio showcases projects I worked on after college and during my time at graduate school. Many include a gallery to browse through or a file that can be downloaded and viewed.
Communications & Design
Capstone Project: Student Engagement with Six Sustainable Actions
Fall 2024 to Present
Skills: Strategic Communication, Data Analytics, Data Visualization, Research Writing
For my communication management capstone project, I conducted an analysis of student engagement with sustainability initiatives at the University of Southern California, with a focus on six specific actions promoted by the Office of Sustainability. I researched various persuasion theories and conducted exploratory research with several students to learn about different factors that could influence why students do or do not take sustainable action. I then created a survey and collected responses from 44 undergraduate and graduate students, and analyzed the responses to compile key statistics about student engagement with each action. My final product was a report summarizing my research, findings, and suggestions for future communication strategies.
CR Citrus Audience Analysis
Fall 2024
Skills: Strategic Communication, Data Analytics
As part of my Audience Analysis class, I worked with an external organization, CR Citrus, to conduct research based on their chosen business goal: defining a new target market and identifying strategies to pursue this new audience. My team and I conducted a survey and a series of interviews to learn about their perceptions of the company's products and identify patterns in consumer behavior. We then created a pitch deck and presented our findings and suggestions to the CEO at the end of the semester.
Mentorship Program Assessment Presentation
Fall 2024
Skills: Data Analytics, Data Visualization
My main responsibility as a graduate assistant to the USC Dornsife Career Pathways team is supporting the 2024-2025 Alumni Mentorship Program, which matches alumni mentors with student mentees for professional and personal development. At the beginning of the program, I created a pre-program survey for the participants, analyzed their feedback, and presented my findings to members of my team as well as stakeholders on the Alumni Relations team. After conducting a post-program survey at the end of the program, I hope to use the results to provide recommendations for program changes and to communicate the important impact this program has on our students.
Pinterest Online Marketing Analysis
Spring 2024
Skills: Research Writing
One of the papers for my Online Marketing class was an analysis of a digital platform and a comparison of two brands using the platform for marketing. In my paper I examined the history, influence, and key issues of Pinterest and compared the marketing efforts of the brands Blogilates and Columbia Sportswear.
Theatre of Public Speaking Strategic Communication Plan
Fall 2023
Skills: Strategic Communication, Data Analytics
As part of my Strategic Corporate Communication class, I worked with an external organization, the Theatre of Public Speaking, to create a strategic communication plan based on their chosen business goal: increasing the number of corporate clients. My team and I first conducted an environmental, competitor, and stakeholder analysis, which involved surveying past corporate clients. We then created objectives and tactics and developed an implementation timeline, budget, and assessment plan.
Daily Trojan
Fall 2023 to Present
Skills: Illustration and Design
The Daily Trojan is the University of Southern California’s only independent student newspaper, since 1912. I currently work as a designer and create a variety of graphics to accompany articles. I typically create my graphics based on specific requests from other staff members, but I sometimes develop my own ideas based on the content of the articles.
Other Work
Highlights of the Cuala and Dun Emer Press Collection
Summer 2023
Skills: Creative Writing
During the summer before starting graduate school, I worked as a lab assistant for Stanford University's Digital Production Group. I digitized a variety of historically and culturally significant items and at the end of the summer I had the opportunity to write a staff post for our website about one of our rare book collections, the Cuala and Dun Emer Press Collection.
Epic for Kids
Fall 2021 to Winter 2023
Skills: Project Management, Data Analytics
After graduating college I worked at Epic for Kids as a digital asset coordinator and later as a publisher account manager. While I mainly focused on daily tasks such as metadata entry, quality assurance, file tracking, and stakeholder communication, I also became involved in a few larger projects.
File Tracking in Asana: My main project as the publisher account manager was updating the Asana board that was used to track file deliveries from our stakeholders. I initiated this project after noticing issues with the previous tracking system. This screenshot shows a model of my new Asana board, which I reorganized and streamlined to better keep track of file status and delivery progress (publisher names have been blacked out for privacy).
Quality Assurance Training: Prior to my transition to publisher account manager, I was responsible for training four team members in quality assurance. As part of the training, I presented progress updates to our team managers. This PDF shows an excerpt of my final progress presentation and several graphs I made to visualize the training data (team member names have been removed and replaced with the letters A-D for privacy).
Content Standards Guide: As a digital asset coordinator, I was responsible for quality assurance of our digital content. After noticing many quality and maturity issues that weren't covered in our wiki, I initiated a project to create a more comprehensive guide to our content standards.