About Me

I want to make government easier to access through better design.

If your state just enacted early voting, but you can’t find the early voting locations on the election website, does that right exist for you?

While earning my JD at William & Mary, I was lucky enough to find that I had landed at a law school with one of the first “Election Law” programs in the country. What drew me to elections were all of the problems that needed to be solved within the administration of our democracy.


After a few years in the election field, what I realized was that those problems needed not only legal and policy solutions but design solutions and that I was far more interested in the impact I could make as a passionate designer than as a lawyer.


These solutions require more than just “design thinking” however, they require a familiarity with the myriad constraints facing government agencies and how laws are crafted, changed, and executed by each branch of government. This is where I come in.

As a UX designer, I can promise products that are simple, clean, and accessible.

But as a UX designer with experience working in law and government, I am uniquely suited to transform how we access our government services through human-centered design.

Mailer I designed to send to 4.7 million households when North Carolina needed to “un-implement” voter photo ID requirements.

EXPERIENCE

WHAT LAW TAUGHT ME ABOUT UX

Parrot-made statements are not hearsay.

WHAT THEATER TAUGHT ME ABOUT UX

  • Anything put in front of the audience must add to the audience’s understanding of the experience.

  • The human brain has a beautiful and/or dangerous capacity to fill in missing information and believe it to be real.

  • Costume similarities make a chorus, contrast makes a lead.

In “Accidental Death of an Anarchist,” the lead character (The Maniac) was the only one I did not dress in grayscale to match the set, and he even got to wear orange shoes.

WHAT RETAIL TAUGHT ME ABOUT UX

  • Improving usability for workers and staff enhances the customer experience.

  • A system must be tested in the same loud, stressful, fast-paced environment it’s being designed for.

  • Simple tasks, like calculating change, can become nearly impossible against the noise of a coffee grinder.

How might we build a more convenient way to share the work schedule with employees?

EDUCATION

DESIGNLAB FOUNDATIONS & UX ACADEMY

2022 - 2023

Building the UI for the “Wayfarer” travel website was the final project for Designlab Foundations.

WILLIAM & MARY LAW SCHOOL

2011 - 2014 | Election Law

  • Top-five finalist in the 2012 W&M Business Plan Competition with a proposal for a game app for law school students

  • Contributed to papers for the ABA Standing Committee on Election Law on Election Day Delays and Election Reforms

  • Performed detailed cite checks as a staff editor for The Journal of Women and the Law

“Marshall & Wythe Throw a Kegger” was a particularly-popular t-shirt I designed for the annual W&M Law School bar crawl.

CARNEGIE MELLON SCHOOL OF DRAMA

2004 - 2008 | Costume & Scenery Design

  • Attended and had work featured in the 2007 Prague Quadrennial

  • Performed a one-woman show about dust

  • Unofficial “favorite crew head” of the underclassmen I managed as an assistant stage manager and wardrobe supervisor

An Erté-inspired costume rendering for “The Boyfriend.”