I create digital experiences that scale from big-picture vision to pixel-perfect precision.

I'm a Senior UX Designer with over seven years of experience blending visual design, strategic thinking, and user-centered methodologies to craft meaningful digital experiences. My work spans a range of industries, including defense (DoD), healthcare, state government, supply chain/manufacturing, and banking.

With a strong foundation in Graphic Design and three generations of designers in my family, I've always been drawn to visual elegance and the complexity of human behavior. I thrive at the intersection of aesthetics and analysis, moving fluidly from early discovery to detailed execution. By applying my knowledge of end-to-end design processes, I create solutions that balance bold ideas with real-world feasibility.

I collaborate closely with clients, stakeholders, and cross-functional teams to turn complexity into clarity, especially within data-heavy or ambiguous problem spaces. My early experience designing for the DoD sparked a lasting passion for solving layered, constraint-driven challenges. I see obstacles not as setbacks, but as opportunities to design with intention and impact.

I'm always looking for challenges that expand my thinking, stretch my creativity, and deepen my understanding of emerging technologies and human-centered design. If that resonates with you, let's connect!

Planning an ATO is complex and slow

How can we help Master Air Attack Planners (MAAP Chiefs) optimize their part of the planning process and be more efficient with their time and resources?

Designing for a classified domain on a deadline

The Mile Two design team had a tight three-month deadline to create a proof of concept for a domain none of us had worked in before, using security-cleared tools required by the customer.

Weekly sprints that built knowledge and fidelity together

We adopted a weekly sprint process, building visual concepts based on existing knowledge and making assumptions where information was lacking. Regular meetings with SMEs helped us fill those knowledge gaps while increasing design fidelity each cycle. Critiques with customers and SMEs became a way to validate and correct our assumptions, and built a real sense of partnership in the design process.

The MAAP Chief is where plans get optimized

We started by reviewing existing literature, studying models, and interviewing SMEs to understand the current ATO planning process. The JFACC sets initial plan constraints, which the MAAP Chief optimizes before submitting the plan for approval. Many processes feed into an ATO, but we focused on supporting the MAAP Chief as they analyze and compare the top AI-generated plans they receive.

Three problems slowing planners down

Mapping the data behind a mission package

Planners use data to build the most optimal "package," a group of aircraft assigned to a specific mission or task. We mapped the hierarchy and relationships within that data, then broke the system down into its functions, with a process flow layered on top to show how SkyOps should ideally work.

Two monitors, one picture of the plan

An information architecture exercise uncovered how MAAP Chiefs mentally group data. We then asked SMEs to arrange that same information on screen, which pointed to three core elements:

1. Comparison view: quickly compare the top imported plans at a macro level to decide which is worth fine-tuning.
2. Timeline: a clear, chronological view of package data.
3. Chart: a map simulation tracking aircraft movement over time, showing when and where targets will be serviced, updated live as the timeline and metrics change.

Because a plan holds so much data, we made SkyOps a dual-monitor tool, so planners never have to switch between files and always see the whole plan.

Scenarios to test ideas before building them

We paired scenarios of how a planner might use SkyOps with wireframes. This helped us communicate ideas to the customer and SMEs, confirm feasibility, and make sure our concepts fit the larger mission planning process.

Design progression

Fidelity grew alongside our domain knowledge, from rapid early concepts to refined designs.

The core worked. Three things didn't.

Testing showed our core design matched the MAAP Chief's mental model. Timelines of package activity over 24 hours, together with the map chart of aircraft and targets, were the most effective way to show macro-level plan details. Three issues needed work:

Choosing the sectional radar chart

To fix plan comparison, we explored bar charts and sectional radar charts, then tested both with planners.

The sectional radar chart won. It showed how balanced each plan was across dimensions, segmented the data into distinct sections, and made it easy to see how adjusting one metric affected the whole, especially when comparing a single metric across plans. Planners also liked being able to minimize and maximize plans to show and edit more data.

Timelines that tell the truth

After round one showed that some timeline displays misrepresented the data, we reworked them to reflect what the data could actually show.

Every problem, answered

The final SkyOps UI has five components: Comparison View, Chart, Plan Timeline, Package Timeline and Insights. Any adjustment made in one appears in all the others, so planners can experiment and see which constraints drive a plan's scores.

Importing plans

The MAAP Chief imports the top three plans from the plan generator. Plan summaries appear side by side in the comparison view on one monitor.

Selecting and nudging a plan

Selecting a plan expands it to show more data while the others minimize, and the planner can begin to nudge and adjust it.

Adjusting on the second monitor

On the second monitor, the package timeline lets planners add or remove targets, adjust strike times, and show fuel, escort and SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) overlays. Here, moving a slider adjusts a target's service time, red highlighting marks constraint limits, and the targets move in the timeline and chart in real time.

Package details

Planners can drill into a package to add, remove and adjust targets, add or remove aircraft using slack resources, or change the timing of additional resources.

Predictive AI that planners can trust

Beyond nudging, SkyOps offers predictive AI that anticipates user needs or potential issues, drawing on historical data, user behavior and context to suggest plan improvements.

A second phase, funded by the results

The customer was satisfied, the SMEs were excited, and a second phase of work was planned.

Phase two would further expand SkyOps and create a proof of concept for the JFACC analysis and MAAP-to-ATO translation process, with more funding expected.

What I'd do next

Recovery shouldn't feel like a checkbox

How can we better support alcoholics to maintain their sobriety and successfully work their 12-Step program by leveraging the power of positive reinforcement?

Listening to the whole recovery community

Through the AA Cincinnati Intergroup and other connections within the AA communities in Cincinnati and Dayton, I arranged 1-hour in-depth interviews with various recovering alcoholics and their key support groups. These interviews helped me better understand the challenges of successfully working through a 12-step program.

The sponsor is at the center

The key relationship in recovery is between the alcoholic and their sponsor. Mapping everyone involved showed primary, secondary and tertiary users, from sponsors to family, therapists, doctors, judges and treatment programs, and what each needs at different points in recovery.

Five gaps in today's recovery support

Three people, three moments in recovery

The sponsor, the person mandated into recovery, and the person leaving treatment. Their stories connect: Antin becomes Emmitt's sponsor, and Cecilia builds a support system before she leaves treatment.

Antin

The AA Activist · 43

“What can I do to improve as a sponsor for my sponsees?”

Before

Sober for 10 years and sponsoring three people, but he struggles to stay in the loop on his sponsees' progress.

Turning point

He takes on a new sponsee, Emmitt, whose judge requires the JFT app. Antin downloads it too, and even starts a friendly accountability competition with his own sponsor.

Now

Connected to his sponsor and sponsees, he finds his disciplines easier to keep and knows when to step in.

Just For Today offers Antin

Easy ways to support his sponseesTracking progress to intervene when neededConfidence in his own long-term sobriety

Emmitt

The Turning Point · 36

“I've hit rock bottom and I'm finally ready to be held accountable.”

Before

Seventeen years of worsening drinking cost him his job and his family relationships. He's tried AA but never committed.

Turning point

After a third DUI, the court requires the JFT app. When he falls behind, the judge sees it and sends him to jail for 30 days. He hits rock bottom, commits to AA, and is paired with Antin.

Now

Reinforcement for every completed discipline helped him build a routine. Months later he needs little help, has reconnected with family, found a job, and can sponsor others.

Just For Today offers Emmitt

Building a new routine and tracking progressTimely reinforcement from his support systemA support system that can step in when needed

Cecilia

In Treatment · 27

“Staying sober is easy in treatment, but how will I do when I leave?”

Before

After six years of drinking following a traumatic event, a family intervention brings her into inpatient 12-Step treatment.

Turning point

Her biggest fear is losing support when she leaves. Her therapist recommends JFT, so she builds a schedule from her treatment disciplines and invites family, AA friends, her sponsor and therapist to support her.

Now

She leaves treatment with a consistent schedule and a support system whose encouragement keeps her motivated.

Just For Today offers Cecilia

A plan and consistency before leaving treatmentSupport outside of treatmentMotivation and a view of her own progress

Reward what's done right

A big part of the research was understanding the psychology of addiction: how people become addicts, how they get clean and sober, and how they stay in recovery. Understanding how habits form meant understanding operant conditioning, the behaviorist theory developed by B.F. Skinner that behaviors which are reinforced continue, while behaviors that are punished eventually end.

Behavior which is immediately followed and reinforced by positive consequences is more likely to be repeated. Positive reinforcement right after a desirable behavior is the most powerful and long-lasting of the four types, and if a behavior is repeatedly, constantly and precisely reinforced over time, the likelihood it's repeated grows. Every discipline, no matter how small, is an opportunity to positively reinforce someone for choosing to be sober.

The Skinner approach

Skinner described two ways of adding a stimulus: reinforcing correct behavior, like a message of support from your sponsor for attending a meeting, and reinforcing incorrect behavior, like a notification that you missed a meeting you committed to. Both increase a behavior, but reinforcing incorrect behavior only lifts it to the minimum requirement and is hard to sustain. Repeated positive reinforcement for correct behavior engages discretionary behavior: people repeat it because they want to, not because they have to. The design principle: focus on giving credit for what is done correctly.

Six ways the app could help

Mapping the key screens

Every gap, addressed

Discipline management

The app provides a calendarized, customizable menu of 12-Step daily disciplines that the user completes each day. A menu of discipline options lets them add and edit to build their day.

Sensor completion

Most daily disciplines can be sensed automatically using the smartphone's sensor and data technology. For example, the app can tell that the user called his sponsor at the right time each day because the sponsor's phone number link was activated in the app.

Human and system-driven reinforcement

This key feature creates a micro social network built to be supportive in a way that goes beyond what exists today. It shifts the experience from punitive to supportive and dispels Big Brother concerns by catching users in the act of being primarily correct rather than incorrect.

Human reinforcement (boosting). Support system members are prompted to send positive reinforcement, called boosts, by text, voice message or phone call right after a discipline is completed. As the user becomes consistent, the app asks the support system to reinforce less often.

System reinforcement. The app knows whether disciplines were completed on time, so it can deliver reinforcement messaging in real time, with the precise timing at the moment of completion that makes operant conditioning work.

Progress and accountability

Each discipline has a color-coded accountability meter to help users visualize progress, and the same color score appears next to each discipline on the home screen. An analytics page shows each discipline's history, so users can see improvement or decline over time.

What happened next

What I'd do next

Scheduling sets the tone for the whole visit

Scheduling is the first step in a patient's radiology journey and sets the tone for their entire experience.

How can we optimize the scheduling workflow to better support patients, minimize delays, eliminate errors, and ultimately enhance the overall patient experience?

Understand the whole scheduling ecosystem

19 voices across the scheduling journey

A total of 19 stakeholders, including schedulers, patients, technologists, and radiologists, were interviewed in 30–45 minute sessions focused on understanding the radiology scheduling patient experience.

Knowledge lived on sticky notes

“If you saw my desk there's notes and printouts everywhere. We have a lot of information and a lot of things to remember… every test is not the same.”

Patient & scheduler journey map

Four key roadblocks

Technologist & scheduler empathy co-creation workshop

The Live Well team led a 2-hour co-creation workshop with technologists and schedulers to uncover challenges in the central scheduling system and explore empathy-driven solutions. Although these teams communicate daily, they often lack insight into each other's roles. Each group first mapped their own challenges, then exchanged them to ideate solutions from the other team's perspective.

Workshop activities included:

1. Analyzing what works and what doesn't in the current scheduling process
2. Defining key challenges and ideal outcomes
3. Brainstorming solutions
4. Mapping solutions on a feasibility matrix

Education was the shared challenge

After comparing experiences, both techs and schedulers identified education as a key challenge, especially for new hires facing a steep learning curve with radiology and Epic. Long-time schedulers relied on years of accumulated knowledge, while new team members often required weeks or months of training before handling calls independently. The activity fostered empathy among techs for the complexity schedulers manage, and both groups aligned on an ideal future state. From there, the team prioritized solutions by feasibility and impact, ultimately selecting a streamlined “Radiology 101” education tool as the most effective path forward.

The Radiology 101 Kit

The Radiology 101 Kit was developed by gathering existing training materials along with informal resources schedulers had created themselves. Content was reorganized to be clearer and easier to navigate, enabling schedulers to quickly find information during calls, reduce the learning curve, and deliver more consistent, empathetic patient experiences.

The digital scheduling hub

Performance metrics

A password-protected site was shared via email with a control group of 35 scheduling stakeholders. Within the first two weeks, 30 out of 35 users (86%) accessed the site. Over the two-month observation period, 23 of those 30 users returned to the site at least once: a 77% return rate among initial visitors and a 66% return rate across the total control group.

About the 1-2-3 Device

The 1-2-3 initiative was developed in an effort to reduce infection rates and help patients manage physical activity and hygiene. This project was founded from a nurse-backed incentivized program that awarded stickers to patients who completed three activities of daily living (ADLs). These ADLs include bathing once, doing physical activity twice, and doing oral care three times, hence the naming of the 1-2-3 Device.

The 1.0 device was developed to help automate this process for Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) and Cancer/Blood Disease (CBDI) patients. Patients use the device to log these activities and keep track of points awarded for completion. RFID cards are swiped by patients for logging activities, and parents and nurses use their RFID cards to verify points.

Adherence went up, but the device was hard to live with

While the 1.0 device improved on overall patient adherence, it was difficult and time consuming for nurses to manage, lacked a deeper sense of patient motivation, was difficult to upkeep, and required more advanced functionality and hardware.

How can we fix these key issues found in the original device to improve the patient, parent, and nurse experience?

Three goals for version 2.0

In-depth interviews

26 in-depth interviews covered everyone who touches the device day to day: patients, their parents, nurses, and the team behind it.

What drives and blocks each activity

Patients and family caregivers

Mapping the patient and caregiver motivators and barriers that exist for each activity.

Healthcare professionals

Mapping the barriers staff see for each activity.

1.0 device pain point mapping

The interaction map outlines every daily expected interaction with the 1.0 device, as well as the pain points and opportunity areas for improvement. We learned that the 1.0 device requires far too much redundant interaction for nurses and families to maintain, which often left patients waiting for point gratification.

Fighting germs, one activity at a time

One system for patients, families, and care teams