A little more about me...

Im a UX Designer with a background in film and television cinematography, and a degree in Anthropology. I love finding underlying mental models in any given situation, and then helping people to translate between these patterns with ease.

I believe in making things that last, and bringing the best of the past into our future. I bring  an agile learning philosophy into everything that I take on.

Film and Television

In my past life as a Camera Operations Assistant, I had the priveledge of working on some really incredibly film and television projects in NYC. I bring a host of sharpened skills from this career including a tremendous capacity to work under pressure, to communicate with many teammembers across departmental differences, to work to a deadline, and to be highly attuned to visual detail and story pacing.

Anthropology Thesis 

I studied Socio-Cultural Anthropology as an Undergraduate at Barnard College.  I conducted theoretical and ethnographic research for the entirely of my Senior Year resulting in a 50 page thesis. After developing an interest in Media and Communications theory as well as Liguistic Anthropology,  I decided to analyze communication on the internet using traditional Linguistic Anthropolgy Theory as my lens.

I conducted user interviews in person and on the internet platforms I was studying and I had some very interesting findings. I have been fascinated with the sociological meanings of the internet for a long time now, and I bring well-trained research tools to my work as a Designer. 

Here is an excerpt discussing the Facebook "Like" Button: 

"This paradox is one of many contradictions implicit in the 'Like' button’s operations. These include tensions between individuality and collectivity, speech and writing, act and impulse, and individual and collective. Somehow within this tiny button, a tremendous scope of meaning is enacted. This gestures to how much global interconnectivity adds weight to seemingly tiny tools. When a technological tool is available and translatable to such a wide population, its meaning, local and global, becomes deeply significant as both a meaning-maker and as symbol of the emptiness of pure communication. 

Locating the core meaning of the Like button is becoming vital as it gains traction on the Internet. It is becoming a currency of sentiment- a type of net sum of receptivity toward a certain product or content. This type of numerical figure has long been sought after in capitalist ventures, particularly product-driven companies, hoping for representative feedback from clients. Seemingly, they have found all they wished for in the vague gesture of the Like. The struggle to pinpoint a real meaning highlights the interesting tensions within it which are essential to its success and value. The examination of these tensions, and the way they affect Facebook users personally, legally, and economically reveal the competing structures of meaning within which the Like button is operating. These competing structures are part of a changing system and world.

The struggle to define the ‘Like button is emblematic of the gap between communication systems and the structures of meaning that lag behind. The logic of social media, and its collectivity is fundamentally at odds with the type of deference we pay to individuality in the pre-established structures within our culture."

- Julia Leach

35mm Photography

I also love to  mess around with film photography. I have a Canon Ae-1 and I bring it everywhere. Heres some of my favorites just for fun:)