Story Bellows joined the City of Philadelphia in 2012 and serves as Director of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics. The office is a civic idea and innovation incubator and R+D lab inside City Hall. Story is also directing the City’s efforts to engage social entrepreneurs in developing sustainable solutions to city challenges and further open government procurement to innovation through FastFWD, Philadelphia’s winning submission to the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge.

Prior to coming to Philadelphia, Story served as Director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the American Architectural Foundation and United States Conference of Mayors. An urban designer by training, Story started the city-focused phase of her career in private design practice in Chicago, where she founded an interdisciplinary research group and worked with leaders in the public, private and non-profit sectors on urban, education, healthcare, and environmental projects and initiatives. She holds a BA from Colgate University and MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science.