I thrive on creating high-performing, cross-disciplinary project teams. I am passionate about creating compelling user experience visions, creating organizational structures that enable people to work effectively together, and creating meaningful connections between people that result in supportive, inclusive cultures.

When I first started working in web design and digital media at firms including Studio Archetype and Razorfish, I joined design teams with people who had varied skill sets, working for customers in a variety of industries. I served as an information architect, prototyper and interaction designer. This gave me a great opportunity to learn how high performing design teams collaborate together, and to become exposed to the various challenges that teams face in organizations. I learned from this experience and educated myself with business texts such as The Fifth Discipline, A Simpler Way, Leading Teams, The Art of the Long View, and Crossing the Chasm in order to understand how to drive complex product design projects to success.

As technology evolved to support online social experiences, I had the opportunity to conduct research at the MIT Media Lab, creating information visualizations and evaluating how effectively they could communicate useful insights about social interaction as a member of the Sociable Media research group.

After finishing my Master’s degree at MIT, I joined IBM - first as a product designer working on a low code platform for creating enterprise collaboration applications, and then as the product design lead for IBM Connections, an enterprise social software product that included blogs, wikis, social networking, file sharing, communities and more. As part of this leadership role, I oversaw several designers and led efforts for cross-product UX consistency. From there, I took on management responsibilities, and learned how to coach designers, writers, developers and researchers to enable them to be productive and grow in their careers.

After over a decade at IBM, in 2020 I joined Duck Creek Technologies, an insuretech firm that creates software for insurance carriers and their customers, including a low code configuration platform and software for consumers, underwriters and claim handlers. I have brought design thinking techniques to Duck Creek, and improved the organization’s approach to integrating user experience practices into the agile development cycle. I also became active in the company’s inaugural diversity council. I was promoted to Director of User Experience, where I lead a team of over 30 employees who work on all aspects of the product portfolio.

During the last several years, I have also become active as a musician. I played piano as a child and studied electronic music in high school and college. When I purchased my own piano, I looked for opportunities to play with other people, and joined a jazz ensemble through Morningside Music Studio in Arlington, MA. During the pandemic, I began recording original compositions in my home studio. I have also been playing keyboards in an acoustic rock band that performs original tunes in pubs and breweries in southern New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Throughout my career, I have been interested in emerging technologies and working on applications that represent next generation capabilities. As artificial intelligence matures and becomes part of the creative process in many industries, I believe that there will be many new ways for designers, musicians and other innovative people to collaborate and create. I am interested in connecting with others who are exploring these new ways of working to create what’s next.