The work is only
half the story.

After UCLA I worked briefly at an immigration law firm, then left to work full time at a homeless shelter. A year later I became a mental health rehabilitation specialist and case manager at Momentum for Mental Health, where I spent nearly five years designing treatment plans for vulnerable individuals. Eventually I hit a wall. A month backpacking through Patagonia made me realize I needed to do something creative again. I wanted to find flow.

Back home, a conversation with my brother, a product designer, pointed me toward UX. "You can be creative and solve real-world problems," he said. I took courses on Treehouse, quit my job, and completed an in-person boot camp. That was over eight years ago. Since then I've channeled that empathy and problem solving into improving people's lives through design.