I am an Experience Researcher and Product Strategist with 10+ years of experience.

I support cross-functional teams across the world's largest companies in building experiences used by over a billion people daily.

My path to UX

While completing a multi-year global study following quartz crystals from the hands of Brazilian miners to New Age energy healers in California, I discovered my passion for identifying emerging market trends and consumer mindsets.

This interest in “what’s next” led me to become a research and strategy consultant – where I helped leadership teams build shared visions that their organizations can believe in and activate around.

I now work in big tech, where I lead teams of designers, product managers, and researchers toward a shared language about emerging user needs and their changing worlds.

How I Thrive

When it's time to recharge, I prioritize woodworking, long off-road bike adventures, and playing with my family in the woods.

My research has taken me from Mexico to Brazil to Turkey and a dozen countries in between. While my body and mind live in NY, my heart remains global. I believe that humor, play, and connecting with the transcendent are humanity’s path forward.

Please reach out! I’ve been shaped by various professional communities, and I’m always looking for ways to give back.

Selected Work

Here are some examples of products and problems I’ve worked on.

Due to NDAs, I’m not able to share project details, but please feel free to contact me for more information.

  • Remote Presence (xR)

    Designed, executed, and refined vast global study to identify emerging codes of value for remote presence through VR devices. Created a new brand narrative and value proposition for brand teams to position the future of AR/VR.

  • The Future of Social Audio

    Led the design and execution of global pathfinding research to create new AI tools for users to express themselves through sound in web3. Led AI innovation teams through ethnography, foresight scans, and opportunity mapping phases.

  • Next Gen. Work Devices

    Developed a multi-country pathfinding research program to help define portfolio strategy for 2D<>3D work devices. Led XFN teams through ethnography, expert interviews, diary studies and analysis.. Prioritized findings and contributed to executive recommendations for devices strategy roadmap.

  • Personalized Content Strategy

    Led a cross-functional team of data scientists, content strategists, and digital brand specialists through a journey of understanding how to deliver relevant content across consumer targets. Transformed how America's largest grocer personalizes its content for 60 Million American households.

  • Redefining Relevance (AI recommendations)

    Designed and executed global research for a new generation of recommender systems that touch hundreds of millions of global users daily. Improved user experience and usability of tools and identified new opportunities. Increased efficiency by making connections across multiple product teams.

  • Designing for Virality

    Designed, conducted and presented results of generative study on users and non-users of social media ‘challenges’ during Covid-19. Created journey maps, JTBD, experience flywheels, and identified opportunity spaces.

My Approach

  • Pathfinding & Opportunity Mapping

    Seeing the future requires an understanding of how shifts in society, culture, technology, and the human condition converge. My toolkit is brimming with methods that delve into human experience: ethnography, foresight scans, and cultural analysis. I use these approaches to help teams build a common understanding of people’s emerging desires, needs, and daily behaviors. Depending on scope and timescale, focus groups, diary studies, and surveys can also provide solid insight.

  • Digital Product Innovation

    When helping teams innovate new products or features - or understand why an existing product is not working as expected – I prioritize methods that bring us deep into users’ experiences. Approaches I’ve used for these complex problems include process analysis, journey mapping, contextual inquiry, co-creation, and ethnography. I’ve found that helping teams define metrics is often one of the most valuable aspects of product innovation.

  • Evaluation and Testing

    Putting the hard work of a design or product team in front of users is always exciting! In order to ask the right questions while concept testing and using other evaluative techniques, I draw from my intense drive for a holistic perspective. I’ve found that facilitating workshops and ideation sessions is often the best way to help product teams revise ideas and work toward user-centered MVPs.




Experience research has also taught me a lot about myself

 

I like to collaboratively build things

Designing experiences that are delightful and empowering for people is rewarding – it feels meaningful.

 

I love clarifying the complex

As a systems thinker, I thrive by identifying what to focus on, what it means, and why it matters to the product at hand.

I enjoy being intensely challenged

Working in fast-paced, results-driven environments is energizing. I do my best work when time is tight, and the stakes are high.

 

I am here to be a lamp lighter

I feel most fulfilled by illuminating paths for teams I work with, and in sparking a light in the Jr. colleagues that I mentor.