TL:DR

• I'm a mechanical engineer, designer and user-experience researcher. I have a Masters in Design from Stanford, and a background in mechanical thing design, CAD and airplane engines.

• I was the 2nd employee at the AT&T Foundry, where I led innovation projects like an API platform for healthcare and a underlying 4G technology advancements to support connected vehicles. I was also an advocate (internally and externally) for a culture of innovation in one of the largest companies in the US.

• I am a leading expert at how people use self-driving cars from my time at Waymo (previously the Google Self-driving Car Project) as a Senior UX Researcher and Manager. I built the early rider program, enabling the go-to-market strategy and then launched WaymoOne and I ensured the end-to-end experience of riding in a car that drives itself is safe, fun and empowering.

• I am currently a Design & Research Manager working on Splunk Observability Cloud. I ensure DevOps and IT teams can understand how their applications are performing in the ever more complex world of distributed, cloud based micro-services.

• I spent 2+ years improving products as the lead UX Researcher at Google on Product Excellence, an initiative to emphasize key moments that matter across Google's consumer and enterprise products.

• I continue to design. I am building art projects and TuTus for Burning Man and creating interactive improv experiences for friends and strangers alike. I also enjoy tinkering with bikes and spending time volunteering with the SF Bike Coalition, I love those guys.

My most recent work:

Education

Stanford University (Stanford, CA)
Sept 2008-June 2010 GPA 3.6 

Joint Program in Product Design
M.S. Engineering & Design 
• Adobe: Ethnography and frame working for innovative markets in China involving self-expression. 
(Cross-Cultural Design - d.school) 
• Collaboration: Enhancing team dynamics through design by researching the secrets of expert collaborators. (Master’s Thesis) 
 

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Hartford, CT)  
M.S. Management: Innovation & Entrepreneurship
15 Credits - Deferred Graduation 
• Business proposal for a 1-off furniture manufacturer (Developing Innovative New Products & Services) 

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY)
Product Design & Innovation
B.S. Mechanical Engineering 
B.S. Science Technologies Studies 
• GE Turbines: Design a diffuser with cooled walls to test effect on boundary layer separation. 
• Ark Charter School: Troy – Designed an education tool to encourage students to develop a mindset that learning is fun. 

Work Experience

Splunk (San Francisco, CA)

Design & User Research Manager
November 2019 - Present

• Owner of the end-to-end user experience across Splunk Observability - ensuring Splunk’s product feel like a suite of tools for monitoring and troubleshooting your environments.
• Lead UX Research for Splunk’s investment into Observability tools
• Manage a cross-functional working group on go-to-market, trial and adoption to ensure design, PMM, technical enablement, product and engineering were driving forward solutions that meet user needs.
• Conduct foundational research into current tools, environments and approaches to Observability
• Run the Design Partner Program with key partners from early feedback through beta
• Deliver a product that empowers that keeps the humans involved, with up-to date information and useful data to tackle unforeseeable issues that arise as they move from on-prem to cloud to distributed cloud architecture and the ever growing complexity.

Waymo (Mountain View, CA) 

Sr. UX Research & PHX Team Lead - Google Self-Driving Car Project
January 2016 - Nov 2019

• Lead the Phoenix UX research team - identify and prioritize research questions for Eng, PM and Strategy, write plans and guide junior team members to execute valued projects with strategic product impact
• Design and manage the Waymo Early Rider Program - ensuring Waymo learns how self-driving cars fit into people’s lives, what jobs they do - producing actionable, relevant data to empower user-centered design
• Dec 2018 - Designed and guided the WaymoOne launch - the first public self-driving car taxi service - based on years of expertise managing and researching consumer behavior in the early rider program
• Developed metrics for the user-experience for quality, safety and trust of this new experience
• Evaluate concepts with usability studies on the end-to-end experience of taking a ride in a self-driving car
• Lead strategic field studies to identify key markets and differentiators for Waymo
• Developed new methodologies and systems to understand, measure and improve this innovative product

Google (Mountain View, CA)

Sr. UX Researcher – Consumer Support      
August 2013 - December 2015
• Research, understand and design compelling and effective experiences for fixing Google products. 
• Collaborated with UX designers and engineers to develop integrated mobile help, Google support one-boxes and material design changes to the Google Help Center. 
Critical-User Journey
• Led a strategic project on key moments in users experiences that impact user trust and adoption
-Created research plans including appropriate methodology and creative recruiting
-Executed surveys, ethnography, focus groups, lab-studies, international studies, heuristic
evaluations and A/B test to determine the real issues and test new concepts
-Worked with managers to develop compelling presentations for product teams
-Led design sprints around optimal user journeys, collaborated with designers to execute

Flawless Help & Support
• Led a 12 person working group to execute weekly lab-based UX studies in the US and Europe to
test and improve various support resources
• On-boarded and trained 3 new UX researchers to the team on methodology and findings
• Developed design guidelines for content writers to amplify the impact of completed research
• Mentored 24 content writers on design heuristics and implementing best practices

AT&T Foundry (Palo Alto, CA) 

The Foundry is AT&T’s innovation group tasked with taking innovative products and services
from ideation to commercialization. http://bit.ly/foundry_annualreport

Design Manager & User Researcher August 2010 - August 2013
• Conduct user research with customers (enterprise & consumer) and ideate new product ideas
• Lead teams to design, build prototypes and test top ideas
• Present and effectively communicate market opportunity and product to top-level leadership
• Take products from prototype to MVP for Alpha and/or Beta release
• Build community and a culture of innovation for the Foundry and the rest of AT&T

Selection of Products & Prototypes
• Healthcare Developer Toolkit & API Platform - mhealth.att.com - Designed a developer focused
healthcare strategy and managed the development of an API platform and tool kit to support
developers building for healthcare quicker and cheaper. Released GA June 2012
• U-verse Call Center Agile Lab - While training the AT&T team to work in an Agile method for
building the Call-Center Agent’s Troubleshooting software, we built a testing center in the
Philippines for bringing turn around time on new changes down to a day. 
• Education Platform - Facilitated corporate strategy with research for building a 1, 3, and 5 year
plan for AT&T in education for business, partnership and technology. 
• LTE Policy Control APIs - Conducted interviews with strategic enterprise customers that drove
the build out of the policy control APIs for the LTE network

Stanford University (Stanford, CA) April 2009 - June 2010

Teaching Assistant - Mechanical Engineering
• Human Values & Innovation in Design, Negotiating Sustainable Development, Product Design
Methods, History & Philosophy of Design, Designing the Authentic Life
Research Assistant – Management Science & Engineering
• Researched the role of culture on design education and its’ effect on the design ecosystem. 
• Publication: ConnectED 2010 – The Ecology of Design Education

Pratt & Whitney Aircraft (Middletown, CT) Jan. 2006 - Sept. 2008

Instrumentation Design Engineer 
• Design, engineering, CAD, parabolic modeling, FEA analysis and GD&T/manufacturing support for
instrumentation for the Geared-Turbo Fan. Supported aerodynamics, case design and the test
team in getting the data collected they needed. 
• JSF, F135 & F119 military jet engine test support for instrumentation to test failures and repairs.

Personal Ventures

Improv, Facilitation and Leadership

• SImps (Stanford Improvisers), Landmark Education Graduate, International Women’s Week
Planning Committee
• Hartford Women’s Rugby; RPI Varsity Club Rugby Captain & Player
• Tech Never Looked So Good, founder and creator of this PanelProv event celebrating Women in
Tech; News: http://bit.ly/cbspanelprov Event: www.eventsofthevalley.com

Volunteering

• China Camp State Park Trail Ambassador
• San Francisco Bike Coalition Young Leaders Group & Volunteer 2013-Present, Hands-On-Bay Area
Volunteer
• 2012-2017 Leader of the House of Yes, a Burning Man Theme Camp, 2011 Black Rock City
Farmer’s Market Team
• Rainwater Catchment System – Alvarado Elementary School, Full Circle
Farm Volunteer, Jan.-June 2008 Capital District Community Gardens Volunteer, RPI Student

Awards

• Google Peer Bonuses, Spot Awards and Kudos 
• 2010 Social-M Challenge Winner 10K Grand Prize: Social Movement utilizing social media to get 
people to educate each other about sustainability. 
• 2005 How to Change the World? Winner 1st Prize: reframing automotive recycling to encourage 
car trade-in benefiting the environment, the recycling plant and the owner. 
• 2007 & 2008 Pratt & Whitney Appreciation Award: Thank you award for exceeding the job role 
to delight internal and external customers. 

Media

TEDxYouth@MtDiablo - Speaker      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JppyGrsHXuE 
The AT&T Annual Report          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60XEzHT7bgs 
Women in Tech Hackathon      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxlZ2_-wVm4 
mHealth Hackathon @ CES      http://bit.ly/mHealthHack 

Skills

UX Research: ethnographic field studies, lab usability testing, remote testing, surveys, card sorting, 
A/B testing, heuristic evaluation, cross-cultural in-language research 
Design Process: facilitating design sprints, service design, frame-working, opportunity mapping, idea 
generation, brainstorming, rapid prototyping, agile design, storytelling, business strategy 
Computer: Qualtrics, Google Surveys, Mechanical Turk, Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Unigraphics NX4, Solid Works 2012, CATIA, Pro-Engineer
Interaction: public speaking, improvisation, group facilitation, narratives and storytelling