Qualification Summary

UX Strategist with 18 years of user centered design, research and modern UX methodologies to deliver cost-effective, streamlined innovations for Fortune 500 organizations.

  • Brings 8 years leading UX research operations working with cross-functional enterprise stakeholders and product teams to plan, deliver, sustain, and scale creative solutions. Hands-on experience integrating research with agile and Lean UX methodologies

  • Mentor and coach teaching workshops to stakeholders and researchers for user-centered testing best practices and advanced data visualization and analytics skills

  • Evaluative researcher with demonstrated proficiency in qualitative & quantitative methods such as interview studies, formative and summative studies, benchmarking, customer visits, ethnography, and survey design

  • Excellent Organizer and Communicator planning, design, analysis, conducting and presenting concurrent research studies, producing results, research reports and insight decks 

  • Ally and change agent committed to cultivating diverse and inclusive teams that facilitate learning, growth, and empower everyone to bring their authentic selves to their work

Experience

Principal Researcher, Owner — UserZen

MAY 2005 - PRESENT

Provide UX research and design services: data analysis, mock-ups, wire frames, graphic user interfaces, brochures, and manuals for client businesses. Negotiate and manage all contracts.

  • Grew revenue by collaborating with freelancers to launch websites and mobile applications.

Senior User Experience Strategist — Intel

JUNE 2022 - MARCH 2023

Recommended feature sets and functionality needs for product planning for the next 30 years by providing data center and AI future trend qualitative and quantitative analysis of internal and external research. Led teams of 4 Subject Matter Experts to execute research projects. 

  • Advanced sustainability research impact and R&D alignment by creating an archive to eliminate silos and redundancy in company sustainability initiatives

  • Conceived and presented environmental focused personas through qualitative research to align diverse development, sales & marketing teams to their first shared understanding of B2B customer needs

Board Member, Ally Program Lead — Women of Intel Networking

DECEMBER 2020 - DECEMBER 2022

  • As the first male board member, I collaborated to launch the inaugural Intel Ally program providing the first training, resources and roadmap for allyship in the company.

  • Certified expert providing inclusive leadership training to hundreds of staff across the globe and continue to learn and improve how those are taught and implemented across cultures

  • Continued the efforts on Intel’s Inclusive Engineering Language initiative, driving Intel-wide commitment and action to replace non-inclusive language in our products, meetings and documentation, and partnering with the Alliance for Global Inclusion to do the same across the industry

UX/DX Architect — Intel

NOVEMBER 2015 - JUNE 2022

Provided project management outlining and executing user research. Optimized UX operations in an agile environment; managed vendors and mentored staff. Evangelized user-centered product research practices across the company to create best in class products across verticals.

  • Established measurable user outcomes by incorporating quantitative and qualitative data to track product progress of an AI software development toolkit.

  • Increased usability and usefulness 82% within 12 months for industry leading AI engine toolkit by directing research and design strategy and iterations to boost product adoption.

  • Enabled contracts with global telecommunications and logistics partners leading to $10M revenue in the first year for an asset tracking device integrated with live mobile and satellite tracking that won a Division Award in 2016.

  • Streamlined research operations cost 50% by mentoring team mates in research and design skills to shift the vendor strategy and bring data collection in house for product testing.

Senior UX Researcher — Intel/McAfee

NOVEMBER 2010 - NOVEMBER 2015

Led user experience projects best practices to support security software product development.

  • Scaled a biometric authentication tool from ideation to a user base of 2M+ by researching and iterating improvements to onboarding and initial use.

  • Improved R&D productivity 400% by developing and instituting improved UX facilities, operational guidelines, redefined the team makeup for all consumer security product teams

  • Implemented iterative testing practices across product development for all consumer products including online, mobile, desktop and small business security.

Usability Researcher — Kaiser Permanente IT

AUGUST 2009 - NOVEMBER 2010

Organized, designed, and facilitated usability research, including focus groups, ethnographies, persona development, lab testing, and online surveys.

  • Improved usability of national healthcare website 50% by combining web analytics with qualitative data to address internal tool confusion and repetition

Education

B. A. Psychology — San Diego State University

Minor in Linguistics. Graduated with honors and distinction; Dean’s List. 

Technical Skills

Figma | Adobe Creative Suite | Microsoft Office | Google Workspace | Miro |Salesforce

Surveys: Qualtrics, Survey Monkey | Statistical tools: CSATS, SPSS, JAST

Online Tools: UserZoom | Usertesting | Dscout | Dovetail | Recollective

Skills

User experience design

Usability testing

Communication

Ethnography

Surveys

Qualitative & Quantitative analysis

Information architecture

Persona development

Journey mapping, storytelling 

Project management

Figma

Adobe Creative Suite

Microsoft Office

Certifications

Inclusive Leaders Facilitator — Intel

Net Promoter Certified Associate — Bain & Co

English as a Second Language Teaching Certificate — SDSU

Publications

Practical Usability Rating by Experts (PURE) — 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors. Article