Education

aPHR Certification, May 2023

Kent State University, Kent, Ohio

Master of Science, December 2011
User Experience Design and User Research
Magna Cum Laude 

Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

Bachelor of Philosophy, May 2009
Interdisciplinary Studies
Focus: Marketing, Communications, Interactive Media Studies
Magna Cum Laude 

Experience

Contract User Experience Design
Freelance Contractor
May 2016 – Present

  • Support clients as an agency partner or embedded team member to provide user experience design expertise on projects.

  • Conduct and provide insight from user research, including usability testing, in-depth interviews, focus groups, surveys.

  • Deliver interactive wireframe prototypes, user journeys, sitemaps and stakeholder presentations to execute against project brief.

  • Iterate with designers, developers, copywriters and brand managers to align on project objectives at each project stage.

  • Proficient in Axure, Sketch, Figma, InVision, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop

Kent State University
Adjunct Professor
May 2015 - Present

  • Facilitate coursework within the Information Architecture and Knowledge Management Master's Degree Program.

  • Teach a variety of online course topics, interacting with students via discussion board, office hours, and assignment reviews.

  • Provide detailed assignment feedback for individual students to polish portfolio pieces that lead to job placement post-graduation.

  • Previous courses include:

    • Information Architecture

    • Usability

    • Researching the User Experience

    • UXD Principles and Concepts

    • Interaction Design

    • Accessibility and Universal Design

Gild Collective, Cincinnati, OH
Co-Founder and CEO
March 2015 - Present

  • Founded Gild Collective, a company offering women’s leadership workshops and gender inclusion trainings. Together with our clients, we close the leadership development gap for women and create an inclusive environment for all talent to thrive.

  • Co-created the Gender Inequity Simulator, an empathy-first interactive experience to drive motivation for bias interruption.

  • Managed all business operations as well as HR and DEI client relationships to tailor programming based on company needs.

  • Collected qualitative and quantitative data from employees to guide curriculum development.

  • Facilitate programs focused on women's leadership development and gender diversity and inclusion across a variety of topics.

  • Lead business strategy to achieve long term goals and vision for growth of Gild Collective.

  • Create and refine end-to-end digital experience for prospective clients across corporations and organizations.

  • Execute email marketing campaigns to all workshop participants and prospective clients.

  • Support online and offline marketing initiatives through clear customer targeting and analysis.

  • Define and manage sales process for founding team with detailed sales goals, check points, and CRM tracking.

  • Manage all day-to-day operations of a growing business, including financials, accounting, reporting, investment, and human resources.

  • 2015 Brandery Accelerator Graduate

Frontgate | Grandin Road, Cincinnati, OH
User Experience Architect
October 2013 - December 2015

  • Directed eCommerce site solutions to improve customer experience and satisfaction, as well as increasing sales conversion rate.

  • Provided wireframes and recommendations to support business requirements that will inform back-end development projects.

    • Key projects: online returns, product detail page improvements, quick view, gift registry and wish list, upsell widget

  • Coordinated usability testing on key site areas, such as cart and checkout, to understand roadblocks and pain points for customers. Conducted remote usability testing through usertesting.com to perform smaller tests throughout the design process.

  • Iterated with designers and developers on front-end projects through a self-defined process to create a more agile environment and increase usability testing prior to go-live. Led rapid prototyping sessions, created and tested wireframe prototypes that were improved based on user research and feedback prior to development kickoff.

    • Key projects: personalized homepage redesign, responsive content hub for articles and videos, responsive contest platform

  • Collaborated with digital merchants to create custom site experiences that support new and seasonal product lines.

  • Developed plans for A/B testing to optimize the site experience, identified key performance indicators for measuring success.

  • Monitored and improvex site taxonomy through auditing, regular reporting analysis, and card sorting exercises with users.

POSSIBLE, Cincinnati, OH
User Experience Architect
February 2012 - September 2013

  • Worked within the creative team to create digital experiences that are usable and relevant to individual user needs.

  • Researched and fulfilled client needs for key UX deliverables such as sitemaps, user flows, and wireframes. Additional deliverables included content audits, competitive audits, and heuristic analyses.

  • Increased site registrations by 325% by leading a site optimization project and validating improvements through usability testing.

  • Led brand teams in features and functions brainstorms to determine the most appropriate and functional tools for desktop, tablet and mobile experiences and collaborated with clients to prioritize the implementation of individual site features.

  • Recruited, moderated, and reported on usability testing sessions and stakeholder interviews, followed by sitemap and wireframe recommendations to implement research findings.

RR Donnelley (Formerly Metrics Marketing Group), Cleveland, OH
Research & Customer Experience Analyst
November 2010 – February 2012

  • Conducted usability studies within a state-of-the art usability lab and created final report deliverables including findings and recommendations, eye tracking output results and suggested wireframes to implement.

  • Led 10-person ethnographic study on online shopping on tablet devices and created a best practices report for future projects.

  • Created optimized survey questions for client needs and implemented surveys across platforms, including SurveyMonkey.

  • Utilized online and offline tools for card sorting activities in order to inform sitemap creation.

  • Gathered experience with the following tools: Axure, Morae, SurveyMonkey, OptimalSort and SMI Experiment Center

  • Led the company’s rebranding project by managing up front user research, brand development and website direction.

Western Reserve Internet Services, Cleveland, OH
Marketing Coordinator
January 2010 – November 2010

  • Led the company’s social media efforts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

  • Facilitated the redesign of the company website along with the rebranding of all marketing materials.

  • Completed the Google AdWords Professionals training and exam to become a Certified AdWords Professional.

Rosetta, Beachwood, OH
Business Analyst Intern
January 2009 – December 2009

  • Created and updated wireframes, functional designs and requirements for clients and communicated changes to client teams.

  • Performed Quality Assurance testing on visual designs and sites in development.