Education
- Ph.D. Computer Science – Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Virginia Tech – Aug. 5, 2011, GPA: 3.84/4.0
- Masters Computer Science – HCI, Virginia Tech – May 15, 2007, GPA: 3.83/4.0
- Bachelors Computer Science, Minor Mathematics, Virginia Tech – May 13, 2005, Overall GPA: 3.45/4.0, In Major GPA: 3.55/4.0
Skills
- Methods: quantitative controlled, experimental studies with statistical analysis; A/B testing; qualitative case studies; interviews; contextual inquiries; diary studies; guerrilla testing; usability testing
- Programming: HTML/CSS, Python
- Applications:
- Analysis: Adobe Analytics (Omniture), Google Analytics, Optimizely, SPSS, JMP
- Wireframing & Design: Axure, OmniGraffle, Balsamiq, Pidoco, Adobe Muse
- Data Gathering: SurveyGizmo, SurveyMonkey, UserTesting.com
Work Experience
Self-employed, Pittsburgh, PA May 2015 – present
- Working with clients to create user-centered product designs. This includes….
- Designing, wire-framing, and prototyping innovative designs
- Conducting timely user research and product evaluations
- Developing engaging content strategies
Senior UX Designer, Weather Underground, San Francisco, CA Aug 2013 – May 2015
- Conducted in-house and remote user studies to articulate feature requirements and improvements.
- Methods included participant interviews, think-aloud sessions, diary studies, guerrilla testing, and controlled A/B testing with statistical analysis.
- Designed and prototyped new products and feature enhancements.
- Followed a short-cycle, iterative, Agile based method of design and development for all product features.
Data & Research Scientist, Education Elements, San Carlos, CA Feb 2012 – Jun 2013
- Designed visualizations and interaction methods for teachers and principals to explore student data.
- Managed the Data and Quality Team.
Graduate Researcher, Center for HCI @ Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA) & SRI International (Palo Alto, CA), VA Sep 2005 – Aug 2011
Project Title: Scaling-Up SimCalc
- Conducted and analyzed 95 interviews and five weeks of classroom observations to provide qualitative supplementation to a large-scale quantitative study.
- Identified mitigating factors that influence how SimCalc MathWorlds technology was used in the classrooms and how that impacted statistical results of the study.
- Crafted design improvements to SimCalc MathWorlds that would increase usage of the product.
Software Engineering Research Intern, Google, Mountain View, CA Jun 2010 – Aug 2010
- Investigated the teacher development of educational apps as a use case for the App Inventor for Android platform.
Honors, Awards, and Professional Activities
- National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship 2006-2009
- HCI Committee member, Anita Borg Institute’s Grace Hopper Conference 2015
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Member 2007-present