Growing up, I was the kind of girl who doodled in the margins, rearranged staffs just for fun, and imagined alternate interfaces for museum kiosks. That curiosity led me to explore a range of creative paths.

After a gap year during grad school, a time I spent reflecting on what truly excites me, I started out in branding and design, working on marketing campaigns and visual design at Alibaba and Lenzing.

What I kept noticing was which parts of the work I loved most: the onboarding flow, the reference guide nobody wanted to write. At Lenzing, the brand handbook that finally worked was the one organized around the decisions someone faces while they're actually producing something. At Alibaba, I spent a month watching posts get blocked before realizing the contributors had never been told the rules. The fix wasn't better feedback on individual posts. It was a reference and a review process, so people could get it right the first time. I was designing for how people learn to do things, and calling it something else.

That's what eventually brought me to instructional design, by way of UX. That background taught me to start with the people who will actually use the thing, to test my assumptions instead of trusting them, and to treat clarity as a design problem. My M.A. in Art Education (Digital Media Track) at Teachers College gave me the other half: learning theory, measurable objectives, assessment design, and the discipline of aligning every activity to an outcome someone can actually demonstrate.

Now you'll see that journey reflected in my work, each project shaped by both exploration and intention. When I'm not designing, you'll probably find me drawing on my iPad, brewing coffee like a ritual, hiking unfamiliar trails, or throwing punches at a boxing gym.