Resume

Summary
Product Designer with a deep background in creating user-centered experiences at Frog Design, Yahoo!, and Oracle. For the last 2-3 years, I have been actively exploring AI product design through the design and implementation of conversational AI systems, recommendation engines, and GenAI-powered workflows within a live publishing platform serving hundreds of annual contributors.
Built a mood-based poetry discovery system using semantic analysis, integrated GenAI tools to optimize editorial workflows (achieving a 30% cycle time reduction), and applied prompt engineering techniques to real production challenges. Formal training in prompt engineering and instructional design. Strong foundation in the complete product lifecycle from research through implementation, with 4 U.S. patents in interaction design.
Seeking roles where I can deepen my AI product design practice and can learn from experienced teams while contributing strong UX fundamentals, research skills, and hands-on experience building and measuring AI-powered products.
Core Competencies
Product & UX Design:
End-to-End Product Design • Qualitative User Research • Contextual Inquiry • Stakeholder Interview • Ethnographic Research • Competitive Analysis • Personas • Journey Mapping • Information Architecture • Wireframing • Prototyping (Figma, Adobe XD) • Usability Testing • Design Systems • Interaction Design • Accessibility (WCAG) • Detailed Design Documentation • A/B Testing
AI & Technical Skills:
Prompt Engineering • GenAI Workflow Integration • Conversational AI Design • Data Analysis • WordPress Development • API Integration • Taxonomy Design • Analytics (Google Analytics, Mixpanel) • Adobe Creative Suite (Firefly, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) • OpenAI/Anthropic API • Figma • HTML/CSS/PHP (light)/JavaScript (light) • Gravity Forms/Flow • Workflow Orchestration • State Management
Leadership & Strategy:
Product Strategy • Cross-functional Team Leadership • Stakeholder Management • Design Critique • Mentorship • Cross-Functional Collaboration • Design Team Leadership • Agile/Scrum • Data-Driven Decision Making • Business Development
Professional Experience
VAQUITA DESIGN | Principal Designer
2016 - Present | Remote (US-Based)
Deliver end-to-end UX design, from strategy to implementation, for clients across healthcare, fitness, retail, logistics, publishing, and technology sectors. 
Design & Strategy
Lead complete UX process: strategy, concepting, ideation, user research, personas, journey mapping, information architecture, wireframing, prototyping (Figma or as client requests), visual design, and usability testing.
Design and implement scalable design systems and component libraries for enterprise and consumer products.
Integrate AI capabilities into client products, including conversational interfaces, recommendation systems, and intelligent automation.
Create UX specifications, conceptual models, and interaction design patterns for complex applications.
Conduct qualitative and quantitative research, including user interviews, surveys, usability testing, A/B testing, etc., to inform feature design.
Client & Project Management
Manage project timelines, budgets, client relationships, and vendor coordination to ensure successful outcomes.
Lead cross-functional collaboration with engineering, data teams, product management, and stakeholders throughout the product lifecycle.
Develop proposals and cultivate new business relationships, particularly for AI-enhanced product opportunities.

* * * * *
During my time freelancing, I built San Antonio Review as a live production environment for future-forward product design. I've used this platform to design, test, and optimize AI-powered workflows, conversational systems, and intelligent automation—with particularly intensive AI work over the last 2-3 years.
In-Depth Project
San Antonio Review
AI Product Design Laboratory
Built a comprehensive digital publishing platform, serving as a production environment for exploring AI-powered product design. Used the live platform with hundreds of annual contributors and an active readership to design, test, and optimize conversational AI systems, intelligent workflows, and recommendation engines—delivering measurable improvements while validating AI product concepts applicable to enterprise systems.
Conversational AI & Intelligent Systems
Designed and built a conversational AI poetry discovery system using semantic analysis of a 600-poem archive, enabling readers to find content through emotional context and situational needs ("I'm feeling lost," "I need hope") rather than categorical browsing.
Architected a comprehensive content taxonomy (mood, theme, structure, perspective) specifically designed to train and optimize an AI recommendation engine.
Implemented GenAI-powered asset creation workflows leveraging Adobe Firefly, reducing editorial image production time by 70%, while maintaining brand consistency across all assets.
Applied prompt engineering techniques to optimize AI outputs for editorial workflows, resulting in a 30% reduction in the submission-to-publication cycle time.
Product Design & Multi-Actor Systems
Designed and shipped a responsive multi-platform experience serving three distinct user journeys (contributors, readers, shoppers) with integrated submission, discovery, and e-commerce flows.
Built complex multi-actor submission workflows managing state transitions across contributors, editors, and administrators—reducing manual coordination by 40% through intelligent automation.
Conducted iterative user research with contributors and readers, using insights to drive a 25% increase in submission completions through design optimization.
Created a scalable design system and component library ensuring consistency across web and mobile.
Measurement & Optimization
Implemented an analytics framework and A/B testing infrastructure to continuously measure UX metrics and AI system performance and used results to optimize experience.
Tracked AI recommendation accuracy, user engagement with AI-surfaced content, and workflow efficiency gains.
Used behavioral data to refine prompt engineering approaches and improve AI outputs.

Impact & Scale
Published 1,000+ pieces of content across web and 10+ digital publications while serving as a proving ground for AI-enhanced editorial workflows. Validated product concepts and design patterns now applicable to enterprise content management, publishing platforms, and knowledge discovery systems.

FROG DESIGN | Associate Creative Director
2016 | New York
Directed UX and design strategy for major client engagements in emerging technology spaces, aligning business objectives with user experience outcomes.
Leadership & Strategy
Led multidisciplinary design teams including researchers, interaction designers, and visual designers on enterprise-scale projects.
Managed daily creative output and deliverables for complex projects requiring novel interaction paradigms.
Directed project planning, set priorities, assigned resources, and ensured successful delivery of cutting-edge product concepts.
Fostered an environment of sustained creativity, innovation, and professional growth across the design team.
Business Development & Client Relations
Contributed to new business development through pitch creation and proposal development for Fortune 500 clients.
Presented design strategy, innovation roadmaps, and concepts to C-level stakeholders.
Cultivated long-term client relationships through thought leadership and strategic consultation.

FROG DESIGN | Principal Designer
2007 - 2012 | Austin
Led innovative interaction design for large-scale enterprise and consumer products across multiple industries. Collaborated with strategists, researchers, and visual designers to deliver innovative digital experiences. Work resulted in 4 U.S. patents for novel interaction methods.
Interaction Design & Innovation
Pioneered dual-screen mobile interaction paradigms, resulting in 4 U.S. patents for gesture-based navigation, universal clipboard, display stack management, and novel viewing methods - work required deep understanding of how users conceptualize and interact with complex multi-screen systems.
Oversaw complete UX design process: user research, conceptual frameworks, workflows, information architecture, wireframes, prototypes, and interaction design systems for high-profile client engagements.
Developed innovative conceptual approaches to complex interaction problems, particularly in emerging hardware form factors and novel interaction modalities.
Led multidisciplinary design teams delivering large-scale projects in finance, healthcare, telecom, and entertainment while executing critical design and research work.
Created comprehensive design systems and pattern libraries for multiple enterprise clients, ensuring scalability and consistency across product teams.
Thought Leadership & Client Relations
Presented complex concepts and design rationale to executive stakeholders, and detailed specifications to engineers and cross-functional teams.
Wrote and spoke on emerging interaction patterns, design trends, and research methodologies for internal education and business development.
Mentored junior designers on advanced UX practices, design thinking, and interaction design craft.

YAHOO! | Senior Interaction Designer
2004 - 2007 | Santa Monica
Directed multiple redesigns for high-traffic consumer platforms serving millions of daily users in Yahoo! Lifestyles group.
Product Design at Scale
Led design and research for major platform redesigns, including persona development, scenarios, concepts, competitive analysis, and mood boards.
Created conceptual frameworks, template wireframes, task flows, taxonomies, and functional specifications for new consumer properties.
Conducted user research, competitive analysis, and usability testing to validate design decisions for products serving global audiences.
Collaborated with engineers and product managers in a fast-paced environment, iterating rapidly based on user feedback and analytics.
Successfully launched multiple high-impact consumer products.

ORACLE | User Experience Designer
2003 - 2004 | Redwood Shores
Developed user experiences for enterprise CRM and HR systems serving a global workforce.
Enterprise UX Design
Developed functional prototypes, use cases, task models, design specifications, and usability testing frameworks for complex enterprise applications.
Redesigned major system components, including creating specifications, CSS development, and validation.
Collaborated with engineering on design improvements and workflow optimizations for mission-critical business systems.
Conducted usability research in a lab environment: wrote test plans, scenarios, and tasks; logged sessions; created enhancement recommendations; presented results to stakeholders.
Patents
Universal clipboard (US 13/247801)
Education & Certifications
University of California, Davis
Bachelor of Arts, Linguistics
Foundation in language structure and communication theory
Prompt Engineering Specialization, Vanderbilt University, Coursera (2024)
Advanced prompt patterns, RAG systems, AI agents, LLM optimization techniques
Google UX Design Professional Certificate, Google, Coursera (2024)
Modern UX methodologies, Figma prototyping, user research, design systems
Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate, Google, Coursera (2024)
Data-driven decision making, analytics, A/B testing, metrics analysis
120-Hour Master Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Bridge Education Group (2025)
Instructional design, rubric development, scaffolded learning - applied to conversational AI design
Adobe Graphic Designer Professional Certificate, Adobe, Coursera (2025)
Adobe Creative Suite, including AI-powered design tools
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