Experience

User Experience Research Intern

June 2022 – January 2023 (layoffs)

As a Research Intern at HashiCorp, I supported the Research & Insights Team and my Design peers to learn about HashiCorp's users, their needs, and their behaviors. I contributed to research framing, planning, facilitation and synthesis of research to develop useful insights for the HashiCorp teams. My main focus was developing personas for Consul users.

I owned this process from recruitment to creating the script to actually synthesizing the findings and creating impactful artifacts in the form of postcards and slide decks catered to the audience. I enjoyed connecting with stakeholders and using my foundation in qualitative research to connect with the goals, mission of the company, and the actual project.

DREAM Lab Specialist

2020 – 2022

I could be found in the Digital Research, Education, and Media (DREAM) Lab at the University of Oregon Knight Library. I researched algorithmic bias in Ex Libris discovery systems and have been extremely privileged to present my research at conferences and workshops both domestically and internationally.

While this research began as an autoethnographic thought experiment, I was able to connect personal experiences to a larger research topic to help my students in the lab skill up their keyword searches and also to help Ex Libris spot some of their unintentional search biases.

I also assisted in the development of digital scholarship projects such as digital maps, oral histories, and transcription processing. I could be found developing how-to tutorials and learning materials for digital scholarship technologies. I also taught live classes on different skills from being a better researcher to creating and maintaining a website to showcase their research. When there was downtime, I maintained the Scholars’ Bank, a University of Oregon open access educational site.

Community Assistant

2020 – 2023

Family housing and university apartments is a diverse living and learning community for students at the University of Oregon, and I made sure that everything ran smoothly. I fielded after-hours calls from residents and problem-solved everything from a car in a parking spot that isn’t theirs to domestic violence issues. I used my compassion, calm personality, and quick decision making skills to either find an appropriate solution on my own or decide to escalate the issue to professional staff. She made sure I was documenting all calls and interactions promptly and according to university policies.

I also planned and executed weekly and monthly community activities. My most weekly project involved introduction to programming classes for children living in the community, but you could also find me hosting pumpkin carving or hot cocoa and storytime nights.