Career & Training

I have worked in public health for over 15 years. I’m a currently a PhD candidate in Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at University of Washington, research faculty in the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (JHSPH), and Fellow at Gates Ventures. Prior to joining HCDE, my work focused on partnering with governments, academics, and non-governmental organizations in East and West Africa regions to improve and evaluate maternal, newborn, child health, and nutrition programs and policies.

I have a master’s degree in international health/health systems from JHSPH , a master’s degree in human-centered design (HCD) from HCDE, and and a bachelor’s degree in biology/nutrition from Cornell University. I have been a PhD candidate since May 2024.

Research & Teaching

I focus on applications of design to improve health services and interventions and ethical data use among communities with variable access to care. I am an experienced qualitative and quantitative researcher. I’m interested in:

• Cultural and contextual adaptations to methods used in HCD
• HCD monitoring & evaluation
• Intersection between HCD and implementation science

I am passionate about expanding country-led HCD projects, ethical cross-disciplinary team collaborations, and epistemic justice.

I love teaching, and I have trained over 1000 individuals in visualizing health data and storytelling. I developed curriculum and teach how to optimize data visualizations for global health audiences. I was a Graduate Teaching Assistant for University of Washington’s HCDE 517 Usability Research course.

Creative Projects

In my spare time, I juggle several creative side hustles. In 2018, I founded Yum Index with a friend, and we author a series of data-centric food rating journals. We have published three books: Pizza Metrics (September 2019), Donut Metrics (June 2021), and Ice Cream Metrics (March 2023). I have spoken about the pizza rating process embedded in Pizza Metrics to a large crowd. I enjoy baking enough to start a pun-y COVID-19 online baking group called Great Pandemic Bake Off. I ran an Etsy shop, where I sold handmade candles to seltzer admirers (and those trying to woo seltzer admirers) and in retail. I was previously a semi-successful* lifestyle blogger and interviewed creatives (designers, entrepreneurs, etc.) on their current obsessions.

*defined by getting free stuff