I’m a UX research leader with 15+ years of experience helping organizations better understand people—and translating that understanding into stronger products, systems, and strategies. My work sits at the intersection of behavioral insight, human-centered design, and business decision-making, with a focus on ensuring research leads to meaningful, real-world impact.
Currently, I serve as a User Experience Researcher at Lexia Learning, where I was the organization’s first dedicated user experience researcher and built the research function from the ground up. I lead research across a complex product ecosystem used by students, educators, and school districts, shaping product strategy, roadmap decisions, and customer experience. In addition to conducting high-impact research, I’ve developed the systems that allow research to scale by establishing processes, infrastructure, and cross-functional models that enable teams to continuously generate and act on insight.
Before Lexia, I was a Research Lead at Sylver Consulting, an international innovation and strategy firm. There, I led mixed-methods research for Fortune 500 and growth-stage companies across healthcare, consumer products, and digital experiences. My work focused on helping organizations navigate ambiguity, uncover unmet needs, and make confident strategic and investment decisions.
Earlier in my career, I worked as both a product manager and researcher, leading the development of educational software, connected hardware, and award-winning consumer products. This dual perspective allows me to bridge research and execution, ensuring insights are not only compelling, but actionable within real product and business constraints.
I also served as an adjunct professor at the Erikson Institute, teaching graduate-level courses in cognitive development, and hold a PhD in Media, Technology, and Society from Northwestern University. As a researcher, I studied how children interact with emerging technologies, conducting early work in areas such as augmented reality, whole-body interfaces, and haptic touchscreens. A list of my publications is available here.
Across all of my work, I’m particularly drawn to complex, ambiguous problem spaces where research plays a strategic role—not just evaluating solutions, but shaping direction. I enjoy building systems that scale insight, enabling others to do research well, and partnering across disciplines to create products and experiences that truly work for the people they serve.
Beyond research, I bring extensive experience leading the development of products and content—including educational software, hardware, and award-winning toys. Having worked on both the research and product-development sides gives me a practical perspective and allows me to collaborate effectively across design, product, engineering, marketing, and leadership teams.
Nurturing is at the core of who I am
It’s the special ingredient I bring to a project or team that really helps to drive innovation and actionable results. I nurture the development of people, products, strategies, and ideas by:
- Making sincere connections with everyone: from toddlers to NASA rover drivers to school district administrators or CFOs of university hospital systems.
- Paying close attention to context: cultural, developmental, environmental, psychological, and organizational.
- Designing lean, flexible research programs that are also rigorous, strategic, and timely.
- Identifying areas of opportunity, unmet needs, and problems-to-solve in order to inform and build experiences that are more meaningful.
- Providing insights and ideas that range in impact from challenging the status quo and informing future states to informing design guidelines and maximizing current experiences and opportunities.
Other fun things to know about me
- My introduction to human-centered design and iterative design thinking processes began in puppetry as a puppet designer/fabricator with the Connecticut Repertory Theatre.
- When I’m not researching, I’m either juggling our four high school children, reading, making things, playing Supernatural VR, or spending time outside (riding my moped, attempting to longboard, or walking my sheepadoodle).
- Mr. Rogers has always been my hero.