Quick facts
Top 3 Facts
• Austin Native
• 20 years experience in creative & design
• Passionate about interdisciplinary approaches
R&D Areas of Interest
Responsible AI • Accessible and Inclusive UX • Animal-computer Interaction • Climate Tech • Eco-centric Design Thinking for Sustainable Development
Future Goals
Publish a paper • Eco-innovation • Live abroad
My story
Since 2003, I've navigated various creative landscapes, from agencies and startups to global firms and non-profits. My skills encompass big-picture thinking, research, user-centered design, and data communication. Shifting from a fast-paced graphic design role, I delved into user experience design, realizing the importance of user-centric design decisions. I also recognized the challenge of harmonizing societal interests, technology, and business demands.
In 2023, I founded Nightbird UX, a consultancy focused on innovation strategy and UX R&D in social impact and sustainability. Our expertise spans ethical data science, digital product and service design, inclusivity, research, data storytelling, and communication design. We fuse quality data with compelling storytelling to inspire change.
I'm deeply committed to ethical design, advocating for holistic design thinking to address global challenges. I believe that combining insights from robust data with effective storytelling drives better solutions. At my core, I'm a problem-solver, passionate about empowering society towards better outcomes.
Austin has been home for most of my life, with a brief stint in NYC before the pandemic. I cherish global travel, seeking cultural experiences, wildlife encounters, and breathtaking vistas. Recent adventures include solo exploration in Kauai in 2021 and a 6-day hiking pilgrimage in Spain in 2022. My diverse interests encompass the arts, history, science, philosophy, and nature. While I lack official pets, I care for my backyard critters and affectionately name the regulars (shout out to Gus-Gus). I geek out over space, time travel, films, music, and TED Talks.
R&D Areas of Interest
How can we leverage user-centered design thinking for equitable risk assessments, accurate modeling and forecasting, meaningful storytelling, and ethical decision-making?
In my next full-time role, I want to work on a research team exploring responsible applications of A.I. so I can help achieve usefulness to humans and faithful, human-interpretable explanations. I'm most interested in:
1.) The impacts of emotion AI in job interview assessments for people with disabilities;
2.) Data governance in report generation from high-dimensional data sets concerning ESG initiatives;
3.) Informed humans-in-the-loop for social equity and fairness in social decision-making scenarios where embedded systemic bias is often exacerbated by the training data;
4.) Efforts to use ML to understand and catalog animal language and behavior during tech interaction, increasing human empathy, animal agency, and expanding our perceptions and monitoring capabilities of environmental conditions;
5.) Accessibility and inclusivity in design, which underpins all of these areas.
KEY CONCEPTS: Responsible AI • Accessible and Inclusive UX • Eco-centric Futures • Animal-computer Interaction
What's next?
My goal for Fall 2023 is to offer support on research projects within The Human-AI Interaction Lab with Dr. Min Kyung Lee, where I aim to contribute as an expert on user-centered research methods and design as well as offer my support in organizing, coordinating and planning. The HAI Lab contributes to Good Systems, a UT Grand Challenge (a research development initiative that serves as an incubator for high-impact interdisciplinary projects at The University of Texas at Austin). I also plan to start applying for full-time roles that I can start in Spring 2024 while I finish up my program with a capstone.
After graduating in May 2024 with my Master's of Science in Information Studies with a focus on HCI and ethical AI, I'd like to continue my career in design research and innovation consulting addressing my R&D areas of interest or a cause I support. While I always hope my contributions help my teams meet their deadlines, or help my organizations achieve targets, or help colleagues in the spirit of shared learning—my primary goal is to improve the lived experiences of the humans, animals, and environments that are impacted by our work as we move towards a more sustainable and equitable future.