Designing for collaboration, learning and community

Community Co-design Jams

Vancouver Design Nerds is a community of practice for local designers. I've designed and facilitated several public jams, structured participatory events that bring 15–30 people together to think, make, and speculate. Each jam is its own design problem: what structure suits this audience? How do you create emotional safety for strangers to collaborate? When do you use a prompt and when do you let the room lead?

Events I designed & ran

• New Normal Jam: a collective questioning of what "normal" meant before the pandemic, and an imagining of new ways of living together in its aftermath
• Time Travel Culture Jam (with SFU Public Square & Vancouver Mural Festival): participants joined "time travelers" from Vancouver's future to imagine the evolution of arts and culture through speculative storytelling and time capsules
• VanBubble: a participatory public art platform and experiment in creating inflatable citizen spaces

Post-Secondary Education

I've taught across the interaction design curriculum at several universities including Emily Carr University, Trinity Western University and Capilano University. My courses centre on building design judgment, students learn to research, prototype, test, and iterate, based on real human needs. I also supervised an 8-month interdisciplinary co-op in which a team designed and built an interactive career platform from the ground up.

Courses taught

• UX: Sketch, Prototype, Test, Emily Carr University (2020, 2021, 2022)
• Design for Digital Interfaces, Emily Carr University (2022)
• Interaction Design Studio, Trinity Western University (2023)
• New Media Performance Lab, Capilano University (2021)

Creative Technology Workshops

The Art + Technology Lab at NMG invites visitors to engage with technology as a creative and critical tool. I design and facilitate workshops for diverse public audiences; kids experimenting with 3D printing to adults exploring 360° video. The core design challenge is legibility: how do you make emerging technology feel accessible and inviting, not intimidating?

Workshops designed & facilitated

• 3D Model & Print
• Girls in Technology
• Arch·kid·tecture

K–12 Digital Literacy Curriculum

Tech-Up is Science World's province-wide initiative to help educators bring coding and digital thinking into their classrooms. I developed curriculum and hands-on learning resources for K–12 teachers across BC, translating computational concepts into creative, accessible experiences using Micro:bit, Scratch, and HTML/CSS. I also delivered professional development workshops and provided remote implementation support to schools across the province.

Design Thinking Facilitation

Planned, equipped, and launched the school's first makerspace, establishing workflows for fabrication and prototyping using 3D printing, laser cutting, Arduino, and digital modeling tools. I also supported educators in integrating design thinking and STEAM-based approaches across subject areas.