About
It’s 10 minutes into the period and you can tell no one in the class is getting it — vacant, glazed-over expressions stare back at you as it becomes clear that the lesson you spent all week preparing is just not clicking.
My background as a high school English teacher taught me how to improvise (among other key skills, like Shakespearean pool noodle duels). Over the years I’ve collected a lot of tools in my toolbox, but I’m not afraid to pivot when things aren’t going to plan — whether that’s facilitating a session, interviewing a user, or when the team is just… stuck.
I ask a lot of questions. I’m not afraid to be silly. And I’ve learned that the best thing you can do when something isn’t clicking is stop, figure out why, and try something different. That instinct hasn’t left me. It’s basically just my job now.
Design philosophy
I’ve always been most comfortable in the middle of a mess. Not chaos for its own sake — but that moment when the problem is still undefined, the stakeholders don’t agree on what we’re even solving, and there are seventeen possible directions and no obvious right answer. That’s where I do my best work.
I think in systems. I’d rather figure out the next thing we need to learn than try to perfect the thing we already know. And I have a strong bias toward shipping the first imperfect thing — because real feedback from the real world beats even the most beautifully researched prototype that never left a Figma file.
I’ve been told I operate like a designer and a product manager had a kid. I’ll take it.
What I’m doing now
These days I’m a Principal Product Designer at DICK’S Sporting Goods, which means less time making screens and more time making sense — of big, ambiguous, cross-functional problems that don’t have an obvious answer yet. I lead service design programs, build the kind of organizational infrastructure that other teams build on top of, and spend a meaningful amount of time helping the business and the design org find their shared language.
I’ve also been leaning hard into AI — using tools like Figma Make and Claude to prototype and explore faster than felt possible even a couple years ago. (I even built this site with Claude Code, which felt very on-brand.)
Talk to me about
- 🐾 Your pets! I have a cat who has put my electric paper shredder to shame and likes to warm up my keyboard for me.
- 🌏 Traveling! My favorite trip ever involves an impromptu climb up the Hverfjall crater in Iceland. Seeing Dir en grey play live in Japan with my sister is a close second.
- 🍰 Baking! While I enjoy the practicality of baking bread, I’ve been brushing up on my cakes and pastries.
- 📚 Books! A childhood full of Book-It stickers turned into a love of reading. Follow me on Fable for what I’m currently reading.
- 🎲 Board games! My favorite game of the moment is Food Chain Island, though I always enjoy a good game of Catan.
- ⛰ The outdoors! Any chance I get to take advantage of one of Pittsburgh’s few sunny days I like to spend hiking or paddle boarding.
Nara, Japan