About
I design systems for complex environments where decisions have real consequences.
Over the past two decades, I’ve worked as a product and UX leader across enterprise platforms, scientific software,
e-commerce, and editorial and civic projects. Much of my work lives in regulated, technically complex, or culturally
sensitive contexts, places where assumptions need to be tested, not admired, and where clarity is a requirement, not
a luxury.
I’m most often brought in when things are tangled: multiple stakeholders, competing constraints, legacy systems,
unclear ownership, or products that technically function but don’t reliably support the people who depend on them.
My role, whether embedded full-time or advising from the outside, is to make those systems legible, usable, and
resilient.
How I work
I approach design as a form of applied, evidence-driven reasoning.
That means starting with careful observation, research, and problem framing before proposing solutions. I rely on
understanding real workflows and real constraints through interviews, shadowing, analysis of existing systems, and
iterative testing. I’m skeptical of surface-level answers and try to ground decisions in what can be observed,
validated, and explained.
Much of my work focuses on platforms rather than isolated features: design systems, workflows, dashboards, and tools
that support complex tasks over time. Consistency, accessibility, and clarity are not aesthetic preferences for me.
They are operational necessities that reduce cognitive load, support better decision-making, and allow systems to
evolve without eroding trust.
I work closely with engineering, product, research, and leadership, often acting as a bridge between disciplines. I’m
comfortable building and prototyping, but just as comfortable interrogating assumptions, challenging weak logic, and
explaining why something should or should not exist in the first place. Over time, this has meant helping teams
develop shared language, sharper judgment, and more durable ways of working, not just shipping better artifacts.
Design and art, as the same discipline
Alongside my product work, I maintain a long-running practice in painting, illustration, sculpture, and mixed media.
This practice is grounded in observation, material experimentation, and iteration, not expression for its own sake.
Working with physical materials trains attention to structure, proportion, rhythm, and constraint. It sharpens the
ability to see what’s actually there rather than what I expect to see, a skill that translates directly into
research, analysis, and system design.
Both my art and design work rely on the same underlying habits: slowing down to understand the problem, testing ideas
through making, and refining through feedback and failure. One operates in physical space, the other in digital
systems, but the way of thinking is consistent.
The goal in both cases is the same: to make complexity intelligible without flattening it.
A compressed career arc
I’ve led and contributed to design work across large organizations, smaller product teams, and mission-driven
initiatives, often in contexts where usability, reliability, and accountability were non-negotiable.
My experience includes building and maintaining design systems at scale, redesigning complex scientific and
healthcare workflows, shaping e-commerce platforms with real operational constraints, and developing editorial and
storytelling platforms where design, ethics, and representation are tightly linked.
Across these roles, the constant has been responsibility. These are systems people rely on to do their jobs, make
decisions, or understand the world. I’m comfortable owning problems end to end, from early research and framing
through execution and iteration, and I’ve spent much of my career helping teams reason more clearly about what
they’re building and why.
Current focus
Today, I focus on work that sits at the intersection of strategy, research, systems, and execution.
That includes senior product and UX leadership roles, as well as advisory or consulting engagements where experience,
critical thinking, and judgment matter more than volume of output. I’m particularly drawn to organizations dealing
with meaningful complexity, technical, organizational, or societal, and to teams that value rigor, clarity, and
thoughtful collaboration.
Mode of engagement is flexible. Standards are not.