About Me
In my childhood, I was always fascinated by math, science, and technology. This manifested itself through my love of video games, interest in learning how to use computers, learning science and engineering principles from activities such as building bridges using playing cards or designing paper airplanes that would glide the furthest distance. As I prepared to go to college at the University of Michigan, my interest in math and science lead me to focus my attention on engineering. At first, I wasn’t sure which engineering discipline I wanted to follow, but once I started taking computer programming classes (a prerequisite for all engineering majors at my university), I wanted to get involved in the creation of software products, and I haven’t looked back since.
My first role out college was working as a software developer for an investment bank, Goldman Sachs. I worked on a number of products that helped sales and trading teams to generate business from clients based on volume of traded volume for a given day. My tasks ranged from writing scripts for simple maintenance tasks, managing databases, developing new features for desktop applications and the server that provided data to those desktop applications. My time at Goldman Sachs was wonderful: I received a lot of experience developing software in a professional environment and established connections I still maintain to this day. I greatly enjoyed developing software, but experience confirmed in my mind that my true desire and interest was to get in a position to design software by better understanding the motivations and goals of users, and not to just focus on implementing the ideas for software.
From my time in undergrad, I was aware of graduate programs in Interaction Design, Human Computer Interaction, etc, and I decided the best move for me was to get my Masters in my field, so I could make a career transition towards UX design away from software development. After evaluating the different options available to me, I settled on attending Carnegie Mellon University to obtain my Masters in Human Computer Interaction. Upon my graduation, I was given a foundation of a design skillset that I looked to compliment with my software development background.
Ansys (The Ansys Story | 50 Years of Innovation) has been at the forefront of engineering simulation software for over 50 years, continuing to push the boundaries of what simulation can accomplish. I joined Ansys in 2011 in a role as a software developer and UX designer. I was attracted to the job at Ansys because
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I was able to identify a company that gave me a position that allowed me to combine my previous experience (as a software developer) with opportunities to explore the field I was transitioning to (user experience design)
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I was offered the opportunity to join a team where I would help to define the foundation of the for the direction of the user experience moving forward.
During my time at Ansys, I have worked in design and development capacities for a number of Ansys products and applications, including Ansys Workbench, Ansys Mechanical, Ansys Fluent, Ansys AIM, Ansys SpaceClaim, Ansys ACT, and more recently, Ansys Discovery. My current role is the manager of the User Experience Team within the Design Business Unit (DBU), where I work closely with UX Designers and front-end developers on my team. In addition to my responsibilities as a manager, I am also one of the leaders of the Black Employee Network ERG at Ansys and involved with various recruiting and retention efforts.
