Résumé

Profile

Digital leader with 15-plus years of design, accessibility and management experience on cross-functional teams in complex environments, helping teams launch usable and accessible digital products that impact millions. Strengths: Team-oriented leadership, High emotional intelligence, Curious listener.

Experience

Managing Principal Designer, Accessibility, Ad Hoc, Remote — 10/23 – Present

Led design and research efforts for a six-person design team responsible for dependent and pension benefits for at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). On a previous contract, directed accessibility user experience across two product teams and four active veteran benefit products at VA. Led the Accessibility Club at Ad Hoc, collaborating with practitioners across product, design and engineering to improve company’s approach to accessibility. Managed and mentored as many as seven designers and researchers, including other managers across several products and teams. Helped hire designers and accessibility specialists. Supported Ad Hoc’s business development by writing bids and case studies.

  • Led design efforts on a bid win for a 5-year Department of Veterans Affairs contract vehicle with a ceiling of $2.4 billion.
  • Shared accessibility guidance that resulted in only one accessibility defect in two recent accessibility audits across three products, conducted independently by the VA 508 Office.
  • Directed a team that redesigned a form experience that removed 16 screens and dozens of forms fields, reducing data entry and cognitive load for the experience.

Managing Staff Designer, Accessibility, Ad Hoc, Remote — 5/22 – 10/23

Served on two different contracts at the VA, performing accessibility design reviews, accessibility audits, writing accessibility documentation, conducting research sessions and designing new features. Managed as many as four designers and accessibility specialists. Helped hire designers and accessibility specialists. Supported Ad Hoc’s business development efforts by writing bids and case studies.

  • Co-authored Veterans Affairs’ first accessibility strategy for modernized VA.gov application teams. Collaboratively defined a mission, vision, and success metrics that centers disabled Veterans with 30-plus stakeholders.
  • Selected to VA’s Design System Council, which reviews new components and substantial changes to the design system, to provide accessibility guidance.
  • Created documentation on how Ad Hoc approaches accessibility work, enabling the Growth team to more easily talk about accessibility in bids, saving time and building efficiency.

Managing Senior Designer, Accessibility, Ad Hoc, Remote — 8/21 – 05/22

Responsible for accessibility user experience across six different product teams working on healthcare.gov at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Helped establish Ad Hoc as experts in accessibility through artifacts and best practice documentation. Managed as many as four designers.

  • Co-authored Ad Hoc’s Accessibility Beyond Compliance playbook including nine actionable plays, guiding government agencies toward more inclusive and equitable experiences. The playbook was featured by Smashing Magazine in a roundup post about accessibility resources.
  • Helped design an accessible, themeable focus style for a design system with multiple sub-brands for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Design System.

Senior Designer, Accessibility, Ad Hoc, Remote — 9/19 – 8/21

Responsible for accessibility user experience across six different product teams working on healthcare.gov at CMS. Helped grow the accessibility culture at Ad Hoc through the formation of the Accessibility Club. Contributed to business development by writing accessibility-related portions of bids and best practices documentation.

  • Guided the accessibility approach to a themable focus style, which enabled the CMS Design System to have focus styles that met WCAG 2.0 and the brand guidelines of three different brands.
  • Established Accessibility Champions program at Ad Hoc, which led to 30-plus people participating and leveling up their knowledge in first two years.
  • Created team accessibility dashboards in Jira, allowing product managers to know which accessibility defects to tackle first, resulting in more accessibility bugs getting fixed.

Design Director, Automattic, Remote — 10/18 – 09/19

Led projects related to the front-end experience on WordPress.com. Managed and mentored designers in career development. Assisted in recruiting and hiring new talent.

Team Lead, Themes, Automattic, Remote — 11/17 – 10/18

Managed and mentored designers and developers while overseeing WordPress theme projects for WordPress.com.

Frontend Developer, Automattic, Remote — 9/14 – 11/17

Developed and maintained WordPress themes for WordPress.com. Managed the premium theme program for the platform.

Interactive Designer, U.Group, Remote — 1/13 – 9/14

Developed HTML, CSS and JavaScript for consumerfinance.gov. Tested projects for WCAG and Section 508 compliance.

Online Communications Manager, The Arc, Washington, D.C. — 9/10 – 1/13

Managed the national non-profit organization’s online presence, including its website, social media profiles and email marketing.

Copy Associate, Graphik Dimensions, High Point, NC — 2/08 – 7/09

Reporter/Copy Editor, The Observer Newspapers, New Smyrna Beach, FL — 2/06 – 11/07

Education

Elon University, Elon, NC — M.A., Interactive Media

University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL — B.A., Journalism

Skills & Side Projects

Design & Research: User flows, Wireframes, Prototyping, User research. Development: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP. Accessibility: Section 508, WCAG, JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, Axe, WAVE. Software: Sketch, Figma, Mural, Miro. Projects: Accessibility Weekly newsletter (a11yweekly.com), WordPress Core Contributor (Emeritus).