About Me
I am a cross-disciplinary designer and polymath with a passion for improving complex systems and facilitating connection - whether that is connecting people to ideas, to each other or to themselves. My unique superpowers include: the ability to hold both large concepts and attention to detail at the same time; an even balance of left brain analytics and right brain intuition; highly attuned facilitation and communication skills especially when helping to bring teams into alignment; and never-ending curiosity.
Using traditional labels, I am a User Experience Designer with a Masters in Interaction Design and a Bachelors in Neurobiology. Throughout my personal and professional life, I have followed my insatiable curiosity down a number of paths of study to become a generalist with a broad scope of knowledge, which allows me to examine problem spaces under a variety of lenses and imagine truly innovative solutions supported by the diverse sets of skills, references, and frameworks that I have in my toolbox.
What is universal in the areas of study I have explored - whether that be neurobiology or yoga philosophy or user experience design - is a deep desire to understand the human condition and use that understanding to to improve people’s lives in meaningful ways based on thoughtful observation and inquiry.
When exploring any new problem space, I always start with the formalized curiosity of deep research. Depending on the topic, I can pull from a variety of research approaches - from traditional secondary research or quantitative studies to more qualitative ethnographic research. I find experiential and qualitative research to be particularly insightful when dealing with larger systems and deeply human problems because they provide broad context and can often reveal subtle or underlying struggles that are not as obvious on the surface. This deep research allows me to sketch out detailed maps that chart out existing routes and help visualize new ways through complex systems.
Throughout the process, I love to collaborate with others - especially those from different industries or divisions - to pull in as many perspectives and ways of thinking. I work off the tradition design processes (call it Double Diamond or Design Thinking), but with the flexibility to adapt as needed for the scope and existing knowledge in the problem space.
After 5 years working in house, I have had the privilege to not only build out entirely new products for the teams I worked with, but also continue to iterate on them throughout the years as the teams, priorities, processes, technology and data changed. Through owning a product fully through these iterations, I gained a deep appreciation for how much a product is a living thing that adapts as needed through time. In my roles, I have served as the designer-of-all-trades, aka the researcher, strategist, service designer, product designer, interaction designer and ux writer/content designer.
Key Highlights Include:
Building out a new data integration tool that required intuitive data visualization and workflow integration
Redesigned complex data modeling input and output workflows
Mapped out a Voice User Interface system for the largest grocery chain in the US including writing prompting and LLM logic
Designed an educational installation framework that allows visitors to explore different perspectives of history through physical computing
Developed and storyboarded a wayfinding and tour service for the NYPL to help its thousands of daily visitors better navigate its offerings
Built out patient-facing symptom management app in the rare disease space