Designing for experts in complex domains.
I'm a senior product designer with ten years of experience designing for experts in complex domains. What I enjoy most about this work is the analytical depth it demands. Designing for an interpreter, an ML engineer, or an AV technician means learning their domain well enough to recognize what they already know — and respecting that knowledge in the design. Experts often have preferences that run counter to standard design heuristics. They want higher information density, fewer guardrails, faster paths to power-user workflows. Designing for them well means building for what they actually do, not what design conventions assume.
My background in archaeology turns out to translate more directly to product design than it sounds like it should. The core skill in archaeology is observation, inference, and a teaspoon of imagination about things that don't speak — reconstructing how people lived from what they left behind. The same skill applies when users tell you one thing and behave another way, which is most of user research. The mental stimulation of going deep on a new domain and the satisfaction of building something experts actually want to use are what keep me in this work.
Beyond work
Outside of work, I enjoy taking long walks through woods and cities, experimental cooking, reorganizing my closet for the umpteenth time, caring for my crested gecko (setting up new terrariums provide hours-long creative fun!), and discovering afternoon tea venues.
Kudos if you can find the gecko!
CURRENTLY
I'm looking for senior product design roles, preferably at small-to-midsize companies, where I can go deep on a domain. The companies I'm most excited about are ones working on infrastructure, climate, geospatial data, or healthcare — anywhere expert users need tools that respect their expertise, preferably for something aligned to SDGs.
📍 Based in Chicago; open to remote or hybrid