Professional Experience

Bungie, Inc. | Bellevue, WA | 2022-Present

Staff UX Designer (2022-Present)

Phoenix Labs | Vancouver, BC | 2020-2022

UI/UX Designer

  • Championing the player experience by leading UX design, research, and UI of a new R&D game while solving complex interdisciplinary problems.

  • Clearly communicate and align with multi-disciplinary teams around shared visions, desired outcomes, and deliver designs that follow a systems-thinking approach.

  • Producing UX design work such as competitive analysis, information architecture, content strategy, user flows, journey mapping, user stories, and accessibility standards.

  • Mentoring junior designers in craft and soft skills.

  • Solved multiple in-game social and gameplay features on the studio’s flagship game, Dauntless, by partnering closely with game design, engineering, production, art, and QA to create data-informed strategies, increase social engagement, and outcomes that met our KPIs.

Riot Games | Los Angeles, CA | 2014-2020

User Experience Designer (2016-2020)

  • Coordinated and partnered with narrative and worldbuilding, visual design and engineers to deliver designs that resulted in the desired outcomes and objectives.

  • Organized and facilitated usability testing in order to gain more player perspective for a high-profile interactive project, utilizing the findings to effectively prioritize project deliverables and features, ultimately resulting in over 1 million views of the final product, with 91% of players reporting high satisfaction and understanding key features.

  • Led UX design, research, and user testing to develop games and prototypes for mobile, PC systems, and physical board games.

User Experience Coordinator (2014-2016)

  • Focused on management, collaboration, and support of all essential Riot UX team rituals and tasks, including discipline meetings and events, recruitment, and corporate communication.

  • Helped the UX Team define and maintain interaction pattern libraries, and a multibrand design system for Riot’s web properties by reducing redundancy while creating a shared language and visual consistency across different pages and channels.

  • Developed and co-managed the Riot Games UX Design blog to assist designers in sharing their stories by providing guidelines, scheduling reviews with editors and copywriters, and promote their articles on social media platforms, simultaneously serving as a tool for recruiting to share a deeper understanding with potential candidates on how we do our craft.

Purdue University | West Lafayette, IN | 2011 - 2014

Program Coordinator for the Latino Cultural Center (2014)

Organized and effectively coordinated Latino Cultural Center programs creating an inclusive environment for the entire campus community. Designed graphical work for the center, including the LCC logo, print media and web content.

  • Oversaw the Purdue Latinx programs which resulted in an increase in student engagement and retention.

  • Fostered meaningful dialogue and cultural understanding of Latinx communities.

  • Supported faculty and staff through the recruitment, nurturing, and empowerment of Latinx students.

Assistant to the Diversity Director (2011-2013)

Supervised the academic assistance program (BEST) and the Electrical Engineering Technology (EET) mentoring program through session scheduling, managing hiring/recruitment, monitoring program budgets, and generating reports.

  • Improved diversity and inclusion in student recruitment, boosted diverse retention, and enhanced student success for women and underrepresented minorities.

  • Provided technical support, designed program flyers, and offered innovative ideation and implementation methods for recruitment and retention projects.

Skills

CORE COMPETENCIES

Product Design
Experience Design
Interaction Design
User Interface Design
Information Architecture
Design Thinking
User Research
Usability Testing
Wireframing
Rapid Prototyping
Visual & Graphic Design
Game Design & Development
Data Analytics
Coaching & Mentoring
Project Management
Project Leadership
Accessibility

 

software TOOLS

Figma, Adobe CC (PS, AI, ID, XD), Sketch, Invision, Miro, HTML & CSS, Google Suite, Jira, Confluence, Favro, Trello, Unreal Engine 4, Autodesk Maya

 

languages

Fluency in English & Spanish

 

Education

Master of Science in Computer Graphics, Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN | August 2009 - August 2013

Impact of Graphical Fidelity on a Player’s Emotional Response in Video Games
Master Thesis - Higher quality CGI is generally assumed to create a more immersive experience for the user. This was examined by testing to what degree graphical fidelity was associated with physiological arousal as measured by a galvanic skin response (GSR) sensor. Overall, it was concluded that, for video games in which a strong emotional response is desired, development focus only upon increased graphical quality alone, is not likely to lead to a noticeable physiological arousal response in the player.


Bachelor of Science in Computer Graphics Technology, Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN | August 2005 - August 2009

Focus on 3D Modeling and Animation. Activities and societies include: Vice President of Minority Technology Association (2008-2009), Vice President of ACM SIGGRAPH Purdue Student Chapter (2008 - 2009),Member of Purdue Game Developers Club (2008), Program Committee Director of ACM SIGGRAPH Purdue Student Chapter (2007-2008), Member of Women in Technology (2006), Member of Purdue Anime Club (2006), Member of Purdue Salsa Club (2005).

Publications

Impact of Graphical Fidelity on Physiological Responses in Virtual Environments
VRST '13 Publication - Higher quality computer graphics in interactive applications in the areas of virtual reality and games is generally assumed to create a more immersive experience for the end user. In this study we examined this assumption by testing to what degree graphical fidelity was associated with physiological arousal as measured by a galvanic skin response (GSR) sensor. Thirty-six subjects played two different video games at the highest and lowest graphical quality settings while their GSR activity was measured. No significant difference in GSR was observed that was associated with graphical quality. We conclude that, for applications in which an emotional response is desired, increased graphical quality alone does not predict a physiological arousal response.