About

Designers rarely have a linear path. Here’s mine.

I started out as a journalist. I worked in local television, wrote freelance articles for my local newspaper in upstate NY, and absolutely loved it.

It was the perfect outlet to indulge in my need to understand what makes people and systems tick, and use that to tell stories that mattered to my community. If the news industry was a healthier place to land for a young grad with boatloads of student loans in 2008, I might still be in it.

After my time in news, I had stints in supply chain operations and B2B marketing, then moved to Chicago in 2013 to be part of the city’s quickly growing tech startup community. It was here where I got my first taste of user experience design. The ability to ask questions, dig into meaty problems, and help solve them was instantly interesting to me. But even though the work was fun, I found that I still really missed the sense of civic duty I felt in journalism.

This desire to combine the two is what eventually brought me to Truss in 2018, a small government contractor where I could apply the inquiry and curiosity of design to problems faced by everyday citizens and public servants. I worked on multiple projects across several federal agencies as an individual contributor and design lead, while also supporting three senior designers and one design manager’s growth as their supervisor.

In early 2024, I decided to join the United States Digital Service (USDS) and apply my public service research and design skills on the inside, as a member of the Executive Office of the President. At USDS, I’ve been mostly engaged with the Social Security Administration alongside a cross-functional team, working to bring a survivor benefits application online, while also demonstrating a modern and agile approach to software development.

While I can contribute across several areas of the design stack, my depth of expertise lies in content design, strategy, and research. Writing is how I got my entry into design, and is still one of my favorite parts of the work. I feel strongly that the words are the most important part of an interface and will forever be an advocate of plain language and content-first design. And when it comes to research, the curiosity that came with being a journalist back in the day never quite went away. I love to understand what makes people tick, how large systems unfurl behind the scenes, and how we can use what we learn to drive evidence-based decision-making.

In my free time, I can be found practicing guitar, cooking, reading a book, letting off steam on my Peloton, or playing with my puppy, Tito. I keep close to my journalism roots by supporting local non-profit news organizations such as City Bureau and Block Club Chicago – check ‘em out!