Hannah Cushman Garland
Hannah Cushman Garland is a wayward journalist turned software developer based in Chicago. She cut her teeth on public life in mid-Missouri, covering municipal economic development (ask her about enterprise zones) and elections. An alumna of the Missouri School of Journalism and a veteran of the Associated Press, Hannah remains deeply interested in people, systems, and power. She brings a healthy skepticism to technology, believing that it can alleviate specific pain points but is rarely a solution in and of itself. At DataMade, Hannah is a cultivator of team growth and a steward of the DataMade stack. She has led or contributed to a number of years-long projects, including LA Metro Councilmatic, the Illinois Public Salaries Database, and WhoWasInCommand, and takes great pride in working in partnership with longtime clients to improve upon them. In her spare time, Hannah enjoys home improvement, eating just about anything, and simply existing in the company of her husband, son, and pets.
Posts by Hannah
Our small team created a shared strategic vision–and you can, too!
In April 2025, the DataMade team gathered in Chicago to discuss and define strategies for the first year in a new era for our company. In two days, partners, mid-level staff, and junior staff collectively created and prioritized a list of specific goals and planned how we’d pursue them in the next year. For other teams interested in setting and executing strategic work in a way that’s inclusive of all experience levels, here’s what worked for us.
Working against systems of oppression
Last summer, DataMade made a commitment to examine the ways in which our work has supported systems that destroy Black lives, particularly policing and incarceration. As we wrote then, this is slow work, and much of it is quiet work rooted in reflection, study, and relationship building. A year later, we’d like to share an update on the steps we have taken so far and reaffirm our commitment to continue working to redirect power from oppressive systems to those that support democracy, justice, and equity for all.
Hannah Cushman Garland is now a Partner at DataMade
Today we’re happy to announce that Hannah Cushman Garland has joined Derek Eder and Forest Gregg as a Partner and co-owner of DataMade. Hannah joined the DataMade team as a Developer in 2016. An alumna of the Missouri School of Journalism and a veteran of the Associated Press, she remains deeply interested in people, systems, and power. She brings a healthy skepticism to technology, believing that it can alleviate specific pain points but is rarely a solution in and of itself.
Why We're Switching from AWS to Heroku
After five years of maintaining a custom deployment framework on Amazon Web Services, the DataMade team is switching to deploying containerized Django apps on Heroku. Here’s why and how we decided to switch.
Get the lead (and the word) out with City Bureau
We extracted lead test results from hundreds of PDFs so you don’t have to. You saw them in a special issue of South Side Weekly guest edited by City Bureau. Now, the data is yours to explore.