About.

About My Work

Day job

I work full-time at the University of Virginia doing a mix of learning design design, instructional technology, project management, and software development. I manage two maker spaces as well as two XR labs. Our team serves the College of Arts & Sciences, UVA’s largest school; I work with a very wide swath of faculty, including STEM, social sciences, humanities, and the arts.

Freelance

As a freelancer I specialize in immersive learning experience design. Learning experience design is a broad lens on instructional design that takes into account the cognitive experience, the emotional experience, the UX, and the aesthetic experience. I enjoy being a “soup to nuts” designer, who does everything from brainstorming to coding to analytics. I fundamentally love learning new skills, and appreciate when I have a great learning experience. I aim to pay those experiences forward in my work. I am able to speak the languages of both educators and developers, and thus ensure holistic understanding and successful projects.

I’ve been fascinated by XR since the early Oculus prototypes. I’ve seen the hype wave break, but remain curious about the possibilities for immersive education. XR tech is not the world-changing gizmo that certain tech billionaires want it to be, but it does something powerful with computing– namely bringing along the body of the learner. I explore this embodied aspect of immersive learning in my work.

Skills

In addition to instructional design, I am skilled in the following:

Fun

For fun I like to play tabletop role-playing games, do “mountain sports” (mountain biking, snowboarding, rock climbing, hiking), skateboard, play heavy metal drums, play clawhammer banjo, make games, draw and design, and hang out with my incredibly goofy German Shepherd