I’m a UX researcher and designer who started in a neuroscience lab.
Background
I started as a research assistant in the Dunsmoor Lab for Learning, Memory, and Emotion at Dell Medical School, where I ran study sessions for all 150 participants, with and without PTSD, following the lab’s protocol. Seeing how differently their cognition and emotions played out made me ask how technology could account for those differences. Personal Zen, a clinically validated game that reduces anxiety through attention-bias training, showed me a product could do the work of an intervention. That’s what led me to UX.
I also work part-time as a medical assistant. Watching staff build workarounds around an outdated EHR, because replacing it costs more than living with it, is my clearest lesson in how systems get used versus how they were designed.
Approach
Neuroscience gives me the questions: how do people notice, decide, and trust? My business minor keeps me asking why the answers matter to the organization. Research answers them, and design turns the answers into flows and prototypes a team can build.
Methods & tools
Discovery
semi-structured interviews
contextual inquiry
digital ethnography
survey design
competitive analysis
In practice: Spellbreaker, Literati, Chevrolet ZR2
Synthesis
affinity mapping
thematic coding
journey mapping
design requirements
product roadmapping
In practice: Spellbreaker
Evaluation
moderated usability testing
A/B testing
preference testing
accessibility audits (WCAG 2.1)
In practice: Spellbreaker, Chevrolet ZR2
Design
sketching and wireframing
information architecture
high-fidelity prototyping
responsive design
In practice: Literati, Chevrolet ZR2
Behavioral Science
cognitive and social psychology
fMRI data collection
human subjects research ethics
In practice: Dunsmoor Lab, Dell Medical School
Tools
Figma · FigJam · Framer · Miro · Qualtrics · Lyssna · Python · R · GitHub
Focus
How people actually use a system versus how it was designed to be used. I’ve studied that gap in legal tech, retail, and automotive. It’s where products lose people: a confidence score read as certainty, a homepage that makes browsing feel like work, an alert that distracts more than it helps.
Education & what’s next
M.S. in Information (UX Research & Design / Human-Computer Interaction), University of Michigan School of Information, Ann Arbor, 2026.
B.S. Neuroscience, Business minor, University of Texas at Austin, 2024.
Looking for UX Researcher or research-heavy Product Designer roles where research shapes what gets built, in any industry where how people think decides whether a product works.
Outside work
I’m in the gym most nights working toward a new lift PR. I enjoy hiking, sketching portraits and figures, and spending time in nature.
Big fan of the show The OA. Near-death experience, consciousness, all the stuff neuroscience left unanswered for me.
