I enjoy solving problems with creative ingenuity and data driven results. My career background is in UX design, business operations, video production, and community organizing. Throughout my career I’ve developed skills in empathy, curiosity, and story-telling.
Featured in:
Techhire - The White House Blog
Resilient Coders recieved funding from the white house and that funding helped launch my career.
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Microsoft Blog
Del, founder of Resilient Coders was awarded the MassTLC Leadership Award and I was invited to share an anecdote about Del and present to the audience.
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Tenacity and CBS News
I had a quick 15 second feature in CBS news segment that aired nationaly during the US Open.
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Project Date: April 2022
Project Category: Freelancing
Developed Skills
Leadership
Utilizing project management frameworks to work in a sustainable pace with my team.
Developing my communication skiils to reach a shared understanding of tasks and foster a positive enviornment where feedback is encouraged between us.
Taking ownership on projects and supporting teammates when they need it.
Business Operations
Filed our business as an LLC with S-Corp status.
Secured our first client in May 2022.
Developing processes that can be replicated in different commissioned projects.
Developing roles for task ownership amognst ourselves.
Brand Development
Developed a mood board and vision board.
Developed a brand guideline and system.
Currently building a website.
PALETTA
Emilio, Jesus, and I started producing creative projects in 2016. We were just kids who wanted to use our time productively and create projects we were proud of. Now, we've founded a design agency in April 2022.
You can see our website that is still in development at paletta.io. Our past projects are already posted in the website.
Project Date: December 2016
Project Category: UX Design - from scratch
Developed Skills
This project was an amalgamation of everything I learned throughout my career. From video production, design, and operations.
Business Operations
Worked within a cross-functional enviornemnt and collaborated with different departments.
Mapped out the existing operational stream and ideated a new operational stream for scaling and efficiency.
Learned to identify the highest value features for the web form to be useful.
Video Production
Collaborated with colleagues to create COVID safety training videos that were entertaining, accurate, and informative.
Worked with IT to upload the videos into a web form that captured data.
Tested a prototype with a large client base.
Implementation
Learned that many things break when implementing a new system. I had to look at the issues objectively and escalate to IT to improve the process.
The end product was implemented in two other LabCentral sites which proved the value this new system created.
A New Digital Onboarding Experience
During the pandemic lockdown, LabCentral needed to revamp its onboarding process from an in-person presentation into a completely online, automated, and streamlined experience.
Objective
Develop a new system and process for onboarding companies, clients, contractors, and partners that gathers valuable client data and is tracked online.
Project Date: December 2016
Project Category: UX Design
Developed Skills
Client Work
I shadowed a team of product managers, software engineers, and UX designers while they worked on a client project.
Witnessed the life-cycle of a client project from concept to implementation.
Learned about client relationship management throughout a project.
Designing from Scratch
Learned to identify a problem that a large community needs solved.
Developed skills to find valuable information and data to develop an idea into a concept and iteratively solve the problem.
Collaborated with an organization called "The Trustees" and garden managers to test the prototype.
Frameworks
I conducted a design sprint to identify a problem, ideate solutions, rapid prototype, and test within a week.
I developed an experience map journey to empathize with end-user of my project.
I worked within an Agile project management enviornment.
Apprenticeship Final Project
During this 6 month apprenticeship program, apprentices were taught UX Design frameworks, shadowed the Fresh Tilled Soil team during client projects, and we were tasked to create a final project.
Objective
Develop a product for an end user in the food industry.
Final Product
Below is a prototype of the mock sign up userflow for "volunteers" and "gardeners". I did not get the chance to develop the user flow for an admin community garden manager with the most important features for a minimal viable product to exist.
Learned to work in a fast-paced enviornment with competing priorities.
Learned to be versatile by wearing different hats within a team.
Developed effective communication skills to reach goals faster and produce high quality products.
Developed agility to adapt when compelling data reveals itself that leads to better end-results.
Re-designed BPM Website
Boston Public Market partnered with Startup Institute Boston to host the first "IdeaHack" - a 24 hour hackathon. My cohort was placed into teams and I was a web designer in my IdeaHack team.
The Challenge
My IdeaHack team focused on making the already existing BPM website simple, with clear call-to-action pathways, and showcasing the most important information customers need - removing the unnecessary.
The landing page now has a banner with the information every customer looks for like hours of operation and location.
During the user interviews with real BPM customers, my team found that "The Kitchen" was their favorite BPM service because of the events and classes they offer. in the new design we highlighted "The Kitchen".
BPM uses social media to build it's client base. I dedicated this part of the landing page to all of their social media postings.
Behind the scenes
Pictures of my hackathon team and a brainstorm session.
Date: January 2016
Category: UX/UI Mobile App Design
Developed Skills
User Research
Conducted stakeholder interviews.
Gathered Qualitative and quantitative data for analysis.
Produced rapid prototypes for testing.
Conducted user testing sessions.
User Experience Design
Developed wireframes informed by gathered data.
Learned about information hierarchy.
Learned Adobe creatve suite, Balsamiq, and InVision software.
Learned about the iterative design process
Social Impact Portal
I worked on an app design project with Stephanie Bond, the Product Designer at East Coast Product, as a User Experience Design Intern.
The Objective
A non-profit organization comissioned East Coast Product to design and develop this project and create a new netorking app specifically for social impact grassroot organizers.
The End Product - App Design
This portal aims to appeal to a younger audience. The landing page invites anyone to join the social impact community in Boston. Each portal visitor has the option to filter their interests. and get suggestions based on their options
As the visitor scrolls, the current events are shown without signing up to the portal. After, there is an option where visitors and users of the portal can input their feedback and what improvements they would like to see.
When a visitor signs up to be a user of the portal, he or she has the ability to post an event relevant to social impact and edit their profiles.
Behind the scenes
A picture of a rapid prototype version before developing the high-fidelity prototype shown above.
Date: January 2014
Category: Video Production and Community Organizing
Developed Skills
Project Management
Conceptualized the end goal and scope of the project.
Developed a work breakdown structure and schedule with Mr. Leone, East Boston high school film teacher, to reach the objective.
I formed a team of friends, communicated the vision, delegated tasks, and made collaborative final decisions to collectively reach goal.
Video Production
Learned about story development.
I developed the story board for this project.
Developed active listening skills for interviews.
I audio mixed and edited the footage using Final Cut Pro software.
Youth Lead the Change
The City of Boston reallocated $1 million of their city budget towards a civic engagement pilot program - Youth Lead the Change, Participatory Budgeting. Youth throughout Boston wrote proposals to improve their neighborhoods. Proposals that were feasible and got the most votes were funded.
Objective
Develop a proposal to renovate a vacant library in East Boston into a multicultural center and showcase the proposal in video format.
Final Product
Coincidental Outcome
Today, the East Boston library has become the home of an organization called VROCC which operates the Veronica Robles Cultural Center.
The image below is the link to the VROCC website:
Behind the scenes
My high school friends and I finishing up the video project to publish the proposal.
Collaborators: Mr. Leone, Jesus M., Sam L., Jennifer O., Nick S, Corey D.,Jacob M., Jessica C., Nehemias, Nelson
