My Approach: Be Adaptable
Designing across domains by translating complex systems into meaningful, human-centered experiences
Role
Design Director
Industry
Various
Duration
14+ years
Being Adaptable
Across my career, I have worked in industries that, on paper, could not be more different: aerospace, finance, healthcare, real estate, entertainment, and robotics research. Each field comes with its own language, legacy systems, and assumptions about how things should work. Yet every time, the real challenge has been the same: how do we remove friction between human needs and complex systems?
I have never relied on tenure within a specific industry alone to find answers. Instead, I have always focused on applying a consistent, adaptable process that questions the defaults and looks beyond the familiar patterns that industries often settle for. That mindset has allowed me to uncover opportunities others miss and deliver solutions that feel obvious in hindsight but were rarely obvious at the start.
Process Shines Through
When an industry closes itself off, it risks becoming trapped by its own habits. Too often in design today, the expectation is that only insiders can see what users really need. My work has shown the opposite. Fresh perspective, careful observation, curiosity, and a process built on systems thinking and communication are what break silos open.
Whether the problem is an aerospace modeling environment, a robotics planning tool, a global credit card flow, or a live event watched by millions, I come back to the same principle. I observe real human behavior, break the system down, and rebuild the experience around what actually matters. Over the last few years, I have layered AI into that process too. I use it to speed up research synthesis, generate quick prototypes, turn interviews and transcripts into clear themes faster, and expand brainstorming beyond what any single mind might generate alone. AI does not replace insight, but it makes it possible to reach stronger ideas sooner and push past stale solutions.
Being Adaptable
Across my career, I have worked in industries that, on paper, could not be more different: aerospace, finance, healthcare, real estate, entertainment, and robotics research. Each field comes with its own language, legacy systems, and assumptions about how things should work. Yet every time, the real challenge has been the same: how do we remove friction between human needs and complex systems?
I have never relied on tenure within a specific industry alone to find answers. Instead, I have always focused on applying a consistent, adaptable process that questions the defaults and looks beyond the familiar patterns that industries often settle for. That mindset has allowed me to uncover opportunities others miss and deliver solutions that feel obvious in hindsight but were rarely obvious at the start.
Process Shines Through
When an industry closes itself off, it risks becoming trapped by its own habits. Too often in design today, the expectation is that only insiders can see what users really need. My work has shown the opposite. Fresh perspective, careful observation, curiosity, and a process built on systems thinking and communication are what break silos open.
Whether the problem is an aerospace modeling environment, a robotics planning tool, a global credit card flow, or a live event watched by millions, I come back to the same principle. I observe real human behavior, break the system down, and rebuild the experience around what actually matters. Over the last few years, I have layered AI into that process too. I use it to speed up research synthesis, generate quick prototypes, turn interviews and transcripts into clear themes faster, and expand brainstorming beyond what any single mind might generate alone. AI does not replace insight, but it makes it possible to reach stronger ideas sooner and push past stale solutions.
The Process
I know when to start with research, when to map a system, and when to challenge a client’s assumptions with prototypes that reveal better paths forward. Deliverables and artifacts build alignment along with clear communication around ideas and intent.
No matter the industry, my process stays rooted in understanding people and respecting the complexity of the systems they rely on.
Be Ready for Anything
I believe UX has matured, but too often it has also siloed. Many organizations assume that only someone who has spent years inside their walls could truly understand their users. My body of work proves that idea wrong. Whether it was lifting conversion by ten percent for American Express, scaling a live Olympics site to millions of users, or making complex engineering tools accessible to non-experts on the Planetary Data System, I have delivered results by looking beyond what an industry accepts as, "good enough."
Adaptability and the willingness to break silos open have always been my strongest tools. Now, with AI expanding what we can explore and build, I see even more potential to bring fresh thinking to complex spaces and help teams imagine better ways forward.
Want to see what that looks like in practice?
Want to learn more about me? Check me out here.
Be Ready for Anything
I believe UX has matured, but too often it has also siloed. Many organizations assume that only someone who has spent years inside their walls could truly understand their users. My body of work proves that idea wrong. Whether it was lifting conversion by ten percent for American Express, scaling a live Olympics site to millions of users, or making complex engineering tools accessible to non-experts on the Planetary Data System, I have delivered results by looking beyond what an industry accepts as, "good enough."
Adaptability and the willingness to break silos open have always been my strongest tools. Now, with AI expanding what we can explore and build, I see even more potential to bring fresh thinking to complex spaces and help teams imagine better ways forward.
Want to see what that looks like in practice?
Want to learn more about me? Check me out here.
Want to check out more projects?
These projects reflect how I observe, break down complexity, and build useful outcomes from insight and iteration.