I like to think that my journey began with the decision to attend a small, liberal arts college in Illinois where I fell in love with Anthropology and learned German. During my senior year I conducted a year long ethnographic study on a community of Magic: the Gathering players. This experience laid the foundation for my love of qualitative research.

Since then, I have been working on finding ways to bring my love of research into the business world. I’ve supported Market Research projects and I’ve worked in multiple Chicago cultural institutions studying and interviewing their visitors. After my first usability study at The Field Museum, I realized just how seamless tech and qualitative research could use each other. I made an ambitious and difficult transition to the tech world at Uber Technologies. When a UX Researcher position opened internally, I realized that with a little extra education I would be perfect for a role like that.

For that reason, I pursued an intensive, one year master’s program at the University of Chicago. While there, I completed my thesis on digital information kiosks at The Field Museum (available in my portfolio). I received top marks on my thesis and graduated in August of 2017. At the same time, I was bitten by the travel bug and moved to Europe for several months – hoping to work, travel and recover some forgotten German along the way. I moved back to the US in 2018 and am starting my full-time journey in UX Research!

In my spare time, I love hiking, biking and being utterly silly. Puns are one of my favorite types of humor. I travel when I can, even in winter. I read all the information signs at historic sites. I climbed the stairs at the Eiffel Tower and still take the stairs when I can. I’m a dog person who thinks cats are “okay”. I think coloring is a great form of stress relief and I sing along to songs when I think no one can hear.

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Interested in being a part of my story? Check out my resume here!