Me presenting research at the 2025 UXPA conference in Amsterdam.
I've been writing since I was 7 years old: letters, poetry, blog posts, papers with themes all across the sphere of the humanities, nonfiction, fiction, and even the occasional limerick. I'm a writer with an acute sense of maximizing both the story and the effect of the story. I was a content strategist for years without thinking of it as a job title. Professionally, I have built my writing skills through enterprises as diverse as content editing for an insurance startup, leading a writer's workshop in Okinawa, Japan, and building the writing skills of ELL students from the ages of 5-70.
I'm a project-based individual and love getting deep into research. Finding the heart, drive, and moxie of individuals through interviews and usability tests is my bread and butter. Designing contextual and comparative analyses that isolate problems and address the concerns of users is my toast and jam. And being able to convey my research findings as worthwhile endeavors integral to the UX process is my favorite challenge.
I'm a storyteller and professional nerd who came to UX after living in Scotland, France, and Japan. My life's other projects include: an interdisciplinary master's thesis on WWI trench poetry at NYU; a memoir about my itinerant 20s; being a postal worker; and failing after repeated owls to get into Hogwarts. A faithful liberal arts major, I enjoy curling up with at least 80 books per year, being a guest contributor on the FilmWonk podcast, and exploring the Pacific Northwest's numerous beautiful nooks. A former ESL professor and drosophila caretaker, I am as interested in language as I am in the natural world.
Things I will always talk about include but are not limited to: architecture, Cap and Stark (my vaudeville duo cats), cheese, pastries, photography (particularly the work of Eugène Atget and Jacob Riis) red barns, shiraz, Six Feet Under, Wes Anderson, and the writing of Jeffrey Eugenides, Jhumpa Lahiri, Alice Munro, and Edith Wharton.
I love conversations. Let's have one.
Ha Long Bay, 2014
