.jpg)
Experiences
My background is in patient-oriented clinical psychology research. Most recently I coordinated research studies at the Seattle Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center. My latest project was a qualitative study evaluating a web-based treatment for women Veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). My twin passions for understanding people and helping them led me to this career path, where I found much fulfillment in supporting individuals with mental and emotional problems. I am very excited that this same path is now leading me in a new direction: user-centered research and design.
What drives me?
I am fascinated by the potential for user-centered methods to bring psychology and technology together. Both user-centered research and psychology are founded upon understanding people and their experiences, which I greatly enjoyed in my work at the VA. For example, in my last project I conducted interviews with women Veterans about our web-based treatment, brainstormed user-centered modifications based on our findings, worked with developers and designers to iterate on the website, and conducted a second round of user interviews on the iterated site.
Why user-centrism?
In my eyes, user-centrism is a philosophy that offers massive opportunities to help us achieve our full potential. I seek to embrace it both professionally and personally, by challenging and opening myself up to new experiences and viewpoints. I am a deeply curious person, forever asking "Why?" and pondering the implications.
Where am I going next?
As part of my journey into the user-centered field, I am incredibly excited to be starting the University of Washington's Human-Center Design and Engineering program! As a student in the Master's program, I will continue to fuel my passsion for combining psychology and technology in order to empower people more effectively and enable them to reach goals! On the side, I'm attending UX events and workshops, and even learning to code front end websites - like this one, which I coded myself!
For more information on my current and past work, please see my résumé.