About Me
Driven by curiosity
Born in PA and Currently in NOLA by way of DC, Northern Ireland, and Buffalo, NY.
Sometimes the people you meet in life guide you to unexpected places. Through colleagues who became friends I heard about a summer school in Northern Ireland. I attended the Irish Studies Summer School in 2006 and fell in love with Belfast. The murals and symbolic landscape of post-agreement Belfast led me in a direction I could not have anticipated.
In 2008 I went back to Queen’s University Belfast to start work on my PhD. My research topic combined my love of the arts and non-profit background. The Re-Imaging Communities Programme run by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland was set up to give communities ways to paint new murals. My thesis looked at how well that effort was received. If you are interested in learning more about that program go here.
I made many friends while conducting research and writing my thesis. I completed my PhD in 2016.
In 2018 I came to work at Tulane. As part of that, I could take courses to learn about the digital landscape. See, I’d always wanted to take my thesis and make it more approachable- I don’t even like reading it. I’d worked with wonderful people and collected interesting stories over the course of years- I wanted to share this information. So right before the pandemic, I started taking classes in User Experience and Design through SoPA.
The certificate from Tulane has given me skills in UX/UI design and research. It’s really been the bow tying everything I’ve done together.
UX Research and Graphic Design
I have a diverse background starting with non-profit management, grant writing, museum design and heading on to identity politics in public spaces, murals, and eventually user design and research.
Research
HTML
CSS
Photoshop