Why User Experience Design?

A passion for technology and design anthropology was breathed into me at an early age. It might even be traced back to middle school when I built my first website. I also have an innate curiosity for the potentialities of humans and our collective innovations. I have served and collaborated with communities from many different backgrounds.

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CONNECT THE DOTS

10 Years of Design Inspired by Humans

2008
» Accepted into the University of Minnesota’s honors Graphic Design Program.

2009
» Transferred to the Shintaro Akatsu School of Design, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, with a generous scholarship and a thirst for adventure. 

2010
» Elected as vice president of the Service for Peace chapter in Bridgeport and grew a deep appreciation for the diversity of my graduating class, representing over 90 countries.

2011
» Graduated Summa Cum Laude with the best faculty I could have asked for. My undergraduate thesis was a renegade campus zine that counter-exposed the myths of what we hear in the media. 

2011
» Sold books door-to-door for two summers, in Long Island, NY and in Portland, OR. Recruited and managed a team of five, personally generated $50,000 revenue in 10 weeks with a backpack, some social skills, and a good attitude.

2011
» Accepted a contract job in NYC as an art director for a 30-year-old newspaper to be converted into a full-color quarterly magazine.

2012
» Studied in Jerusalem and completed a peace and coexistence course at the Hebrew University. Volunteered at Project Hope, located in the West Bank, Palestine, teaching English and Art to Palestinian women, children, adults, and professors.

2013
» Served as research coordination assistant at Educate! and assisted fundraising initiatives at the youth-led 40/40 project. Both organizations were located in Kampala, Uganda. I led field research for high school teachers starting entrepreneurial programs in their schools. And I developed social media campaigns to raise funds for a local orphanage. 

2013
» Declared my Faith as a Bahá’í, recognizing the oneness of humanity.

2013
» Started GeezLouise! Studio, and began my freelance career in business consulting, designing and building identity, and developing WordPress websites for several organizations and businesses.

2014
» Panelist at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

2015
» Began my 4-year service as coordinator for the Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program in Asheville, North Carolina. Accompanied several young adults into life-changing service and younger youth living in the margins of opportunity and personal empowerment. 

2015
» Created the Web Design department at Skyrunner Internet Solutions.

2016
» Completed a full-stack development Bootcamp course and was hired at Greenstone Media as a Web Designer, Developer, and Project Manager.

2017
» Hosted two World Cafe’s that brought 100+ diverse people to the table to discuss their experiences.

2017
» Promoted to Vice President of Software to lead the development team and serve as senior project manager. As the senior project manager, I coordinated agile development sprints and project schedules for up to 6 congruent software projects. Additionally, I served as the Lead Product Strategist where my role was to facilitate many product discovery phases. I closed 8 out of 9 of the software Research and Discovery phases I led. This refined Discovery process assisted in tripling the annual revenue growth for our software department.

2018
» Moved to Seattle, WA, and started graduate classes at the University of Washington’s Human-Centered Design and Engineering department. 

2019
» Joined Committee for Children as the lead UX Designer for Mind Yeti, a mindfulness app for teachers and parents to take a purposeful pause with their kids.

» Completed a full-service evaluation research project in collaboration with Praxis Associates to measure the ripple effect of one event to influence action for social change.

» Completed the User-Centered Design certificate from the University of Washington.

2020
» Transitioned to Committee for Children’s flagship product, Second Step, to help redesign the online platform that hosts all legacy and new products. The new platform experience was released in August 2020. 

Current
» Busy building out the UX for Committee for Children’s latest product, Second Step SEL for Adults.
» Volunteering as a UX co-instructor at Technology Access Foundation.
» Collaborating with World Cafe founders to create spaces for women leadership and discovering collaborative wisdom latent within groups. 

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