About Me
My Design Journey
I created my own path to UX at Rice University, so there's no doubt that I thrive in discomfort and value making every single environment I find myself in a place to engage in and learn from. My academic background in Cognitive Science and Engineering Design combined with my natural empathy gives me a deeper understanding of users, their behavior, and their needs. As a First-Gen student and Latina, I'm passionate about creating designs that are inclusive and accessible for a diverse range of users.
What am I like as a Designer?
I am a hands-on designer who loves every step of the design process and deeply believes in nurturing an idea, from research to ideation to delivery. I seek out new projects anywhere I can and find the opportunities that will make me a better designer and broaden my perspectives.
At Rice, I mentored designers, held workshops, and led design teams. These were some of the most rewarding experiences in my career. I find the most joy and satisfaction in helping others feel confident about their abilities and potential. As I grow in my career, I hope to lead more design teams and mentor more people. I want to increase access to design education and bring awareness to these creative careers and their positive impacts on the world.
Why Design?
Growing up, creating things was more than just an interest, it was quite literally my livelihood. Before I reached double digits, I can remember feeling my heart thump and mind race whenever it was craft day at school. My mom would bring home pipe cleaners, glue, and paint and then she would not see me for a few hours as I created anything I could.
Freshman year of college, I was actually a bioengineering major for 2 simple reasons: I wanted to create things and I wanted to help people. It became clear that bioengineering wasn't my path (and organic chemistry was not my friend). I discovered the field of User Experience Design and fell in love.
I took online courses to learn the fundamentals, and created my own design curriculum since Rice did not offer one. I took Human-Computer Interaction and Engineering Design classes, joined clubs, participated in designathons, and learned everywhere I could. And here I am (:
What about outside of design?
In my free time, you can definitely find me baking, crocheting, and reading. When I can, I love to travel. I lived in Rome for 4 months, so (please, I beg of you) ask me about it!
