I’ve loved video games since the days of the NES and Game Boy. I play a wide variety of games, from small indie to AAA. I especially gravitate towards games with unique worlds, evocative characters, thought-provoking stories, and/or top-notch music. Some of my favorites are Metroid, Mega Man X, Final Fantasy 9, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Outer Wilds, Alan Wake 2, and 1000x Resist.

Growing up immersed in books, art projects, and video games, I’ve always had an interest in creativity and problem-solving. In university, I received a Computer Science degree, and shortly afterwards, a Master’s in User Experience (UX), because I wanted to create innovative technologies that helped people.

I then worked as a UX Researcher in the tech industry for 10 years, where I worked closely with cross-functional partners to build digital tools that helped people achieve their goals, whether they were to connect with other people, find information, or create content for others. Over the course of those 10 years, I worked on a variety of cross-functional teams, from those in charge of small 0-to-1 experiments to large digital products that you might recognize, like Facebook Events and YouTube Shorts. I gathered data on real people’s needs, goals, and pain points, through a mix of research methods, like interviews, usability tests, surveys, diary studies and more. My research helped my teammates better understand our users and make decisions that led to more useful, well-received product experiences, rather than relying on our sometimes incorrect assumptions about what people did or needed.

After 10 years, I knew I wanted to change directions with my career, but I had no idea what made sense. I eventually realized that the reason I originally got into tech was because of inspiration from fiction — particularly Star Trek, which has been a huge influence on me since childhood. The show’s optimistic view of the future and humanity’s potential really shaped my aspirations and how I view the world. I also knew I wanted to work on creating things that help people connect with one another and inspire them to see the world — or each other — in new ways. And video games have been one of the few constants in my life! That’s what led me to make the switch into the games industry.