ABOUT ME

Never one to be content with the status quo, instead of endpoints I see steps in a greater process. This outlook has served me well over the years, most particularly in the determination to strive to improve the circumstances around me: If it exists, it can be made better. I believe it was this drive that eventually led me to a passion for User Experience, though at the time, the term was unknown to me and the path to get there, convoluted.

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As an undergraduate, my impulse to tinker toward betterment led me to the field of Psychology, as I felt compelled to more fully understand myself and those around me. Unsurprisingly, I gravitated toward research, as the process and potential for discovery naturally appealed to me. First, I entered Christine Smith’s Social Influence Lab to investigate fixation effects on group performance in creative problems and explore minority influence and divergent thinking in decision-making. I later joined the laboratory of Joel Quamme, in which I studied the effect of event segmentation on associative recognition memory. Research: collaboration with peers; integration of concepts and information to form testable hypotheses; gathering and interpretation of data; the exhilarating prospect of discovering something altogether new.

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In graduate school, I entered the University of Texas at Austin’s Cognitive Neuroscience program and the laboratory of Jarrod Lewis-Peacock. There, I designed, programmed, and implemented several iterations of a project investigating the effects of distraction on memory. Unfortunately, one year into my graduate program, I developed chronic debilitating migraines. After three semesters of medical leave, I spent several years struggling to find a solution. That solution was slow in coming, but during my gradual return to health, I had plenty of time for self-reflection. I came to the realization that, while I enjoyed theoretical research and psychology, I longed for more practical, tangible solutions at the end of a project: I wanted my work to have a direct, positive impact on others.

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It occurred to me one day, as I talked with my family for the umpteenth time about how an application could be made much more user-friendly, that there must be a job for that. By the end of the day, I had discovered a great deal about User Experience and compiled a reading list. User Experience, I learned, integrates the research process in which I excel with more immediate application and results; it is, essentially, the psychology of technology.

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When I was knocked off course so drastically, I never fathomed anything positive could come of it; now, in retrospect, I can see that there was a silver lining to that disruption in that it led me to a career path even more perfectly suited to my skills and interests. To me, there is no disentangling a career I will love from a career that adds value to the world; the aspect I love most about the career I have chosen is that it makes technology more accessible, useful, and engaging to others. It’s been a rollercoaster of a journey – not of my design, but one that has propelled me in a direction that fills me with great exhilaration and anticipation for the potential to create a positive, appreciable impact.