Resume
Experience
Independent Accessibility Consultant: July 2022-present
- Usability-focused education and training
- Accessibility operations and programming strategy
- Accessibility practitioner coaching and mentoring
Instructor, School of Visual Concepts, Seattle, WA: 2013-2020
- 2015-2020: Accessibility practice workshops for designers, developers, and product managers, and consultation for accessibility learning in certificate programs
- 2013-2015: 5-week programming class for designers and non-technical learners, introducing coding best practices and front-end development concepts
Shopify: May 2018-November 2021
Technical Program Manager, Accessibility, for UX Operations: November 2020-November 2021
- Led accessibility programming for UX design, content, managers, and leadership
- Established and co-led Shopify-wide Accessibility Guild to highlight teams' work
- Led efforts to standardize and benchmark accessibility-focused usability testing
- Established expectations around accessibility knowledge for UX role leveling
- Collaborated with Knowledge Management, Research Operations, and Research & Development Learning to create self-serve, onboarding, and ongoing accessibility education
- Evangelized accessibility to UX, Product, Engineering, and Executive Leadership
Accessibility Specialist: May 2018-November 2020
- Collaborated with operations, learning, research and tooling teams to establish best practices for accessibility training, testing, and workflows
- Co-designed Accessibility Handbook
- Managed projects and communications with accessibility vendors for system-wide audits
- Created best practices for accessibility testing and wrote accessibility documentation for the Polaris design system
Accessibility Consultant, Simply Accessible/Level Access: September 2015-April 2018
- Testing, training, and consulting on web and app accessibility with a focus on usable, platform-agnostic, multi-channel experiences
- Collaboration with clients in ecommerce, non-profit, banking, and travel sectors to build strategy around sustainable accessibility programs
Accessibility Analyst/Developer, Foundry Interactive, Seattle, WA: 2011-2015
- Built out core accessibility engineering team, testing practices, and training materials within a global travel company
- Provided accessibility reviews and analysis against WCAG 2.0 and best practices, resulting in reports for leadership as well as actionable tasks and training for UX, devs, testers, with a focus on clients in ecommerce and digital media
Web Developer, LexBlog, Seattle WA: 2010-2011
- Primary technical consultant for product scope, spec, information architecture, and process documentation
- Primary contact point for contract developers
Interface Specialist, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI: 2009-2010
- Responsible for user-centered design, UX, IA, full-stack development, user analytics management and analysis in an academic publishing environment
- Developed new front-end templates and collaborated with platform developers to improve accessibility and SEO of online books and journals
- Cross-department consultant in usability research, accessibility, and web standards
Digital Services Assistant, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI: 2008-2009
- Provided technical support of online research and course management tools for business school librarians, faculty, and students
- Created IA and UX design for library site relaunch
Analyst and UI Specialist, Washtenaw County Office of Community Development, Ann Arbor, MI: 2006-2008
- Provided UI design, business logic, user training, analysis, and reporting for data management systems used by countywide homeless, housing, and supportive services
- Hired based on graduate research work in human services systems
Research Support Specialist, University of Michigan Center for the Education of Women, Ann Arbor, MI: 2004-2006
- Defined custom metadata schema and wrote support documentation for a grant-funded digital repository of primary and secondary research materials
- Provided research support and library resource management for sociological research on work/life balance and work/education counseling
Education
- Library & Information Services specialization, with additional focus on human/computer interaction and policy for information management for the public good
- Special projects in human services systems to support homeless community members
BA in Creative Writing, Susquehanna University: 2000-2004
- 2001-2004 University Assistant to the Library, developing a comprehensive undergraduate orientation program in research methods and library literacy
- 2004 fiction editor of the national student magazine Susquehanna Review
- 2003 winner of the Juliet Gibson Prize for best student fiction