I led a team of industrial and computational designers to develop “Blue Ceramics,” a modular system of ceramic tiles for restoring seagrass meadow ecosystems

• Designed illustrations, data visualizations, and presentation assets to convey key information in clear, easy to consume styles for both internal and external stakeholders
• Crafting a participatory design process between designers and scientists to design an ecological intervention
• Physical prototyping with ceramics using digital fabrication processes (3D printing, CNC)

I transitioned into a UX design role refining my skills in user-centered-design, qualitative user research, and interface design.

• Managed end-to-end product development at a rapidly scaling startup across 3 teams
• Conducted user research calls to identify key user pain points and communicated findings back for sensitive feature changes
• Collaborated with PMs to define multiple user scenarios and flows, wireframes, high-fidelity designs, and interactive prototypes

I was brought on as the first visual designer and illustrator for the marketing site. As the company scaled, I refined my skills in systems thinking, UX, and data-driven design.

• Built a flexible marketing design system and component library
• Improve site functionality and usability through targeting key changes to the IA and UX
• Creating a modular illustration, icon, animation asset system

I apprenticed pottery under Kobayashi Michio, second-generation master potter, learning traditional Japanese pottery techniques

I was a mountain hermit & ESL teacher in rural Japan to the sweetest high school kids