Design Leader & Mentor

I have worn many hats in my professional career: developer, designer, manager, leader, instructor, and mentor. I am passionate about creating a work environment where people feel supported and inspired to craft the best user experience possible. At the core, I am a community builder with a track record of empowering people from diverse backgrounds to solve important problems together.

 

Community Building

I believe that strong communities are built when people work together toward common goals. Creating opportunities for collaboration creates excitement and camaraderie that can have lasting effects.

As a community builder, I have:

  • Organized bi-annual Team Days events for learning and community building

  • Defined onboarding processes to introduce new hires to team culture

  • Planned many team outings for social interaction, keeping work fun

  • Conducted a team-wide pulse check survey to measure and improve on team culture

  • Helped hire and build a new design team within a large organization, growing from a team of 2 to a team of 60+

  • Created tight-knit classroom communities of design students participating in UX bootcamps

Product Design Leadership

Working in product design, I am driven by the impact that my work has on the lives of people who use it. I apply systems thinking to creative problem solving and bring along designers and product/engineering partners to craft the best possible experiences.

As a designer and design leader, I have:

  • Enabled millions of people to schedule COVID-19 tests during the pandemic as the leader of a multi-discipline digital design team.

  • Led the design of large-scale enterprise tools that enable companies to run their business better, collaborating across disciplines with product management, engineering, and internal stakeholders

  • Supported a complex design system used across many business verticals, driving roadmap planning and prioritization based on the needs of designers across the organization

  • Collaborated directly with clients to create tailored solutions to their unique needs

  • Explored new markets for a large corporation through the use of design thinking

  • Created applications that have received multiple industry awards

Education & Mentorship

One of the most fulfilling parts of my career has been training and mentoring new designers and career changers. Maintaining a growth mindset and openness to change are the hallmark of a strong designer.

As an educator and mentor, I have:

  • Taught full-time immersive design courses for career changers and smaller scale workshops on design thinking for companies and universities

  • Maintained a full UX design curriculum, keeping up-to-date with recent trends and research in the design field

  • Mentored over 70 designers on their path from learning the basics of design to growing in a successful design career

  • Provided portfolio feedback to new designers and brought together other design professionals to guide the next generation of designers

  • Organized training and guest speakers for ongoing education of established designers