As the Creative Designer, I worked alongside the Community Engagement & Arts team to research best practices for community engagement among underserved communities, design surveys, documents and presentations, conduct interviews, collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data, create a directory of local artists, and bring a creative and equity-driven perspective as we worked towards improving programs and practices through arts and culture. Research resulted in the design and production of the Arts in Planning Handbook, which includes a revised mission statement for the team, their vision, values, and land acknowledgment, as well as lessons and case studies from our work.

In collaboration with Emory Arts & Social Justice Fellow Elizabeth Jarret, I was challenged to create a multimedia map composed of the data from students' work throughout the semester with a focus on four specific assignments. The overall goals were to engage students in critical reflections  about how their world-view, biases, and experiences affect their work as data scientists and to use those experiences and reflections to emphasize that each data point represents complex interactions of places, people, processes, etc. The data sets centered on gentrification and food access in the city of Atlanta, and in-class discussions focused on how that data can be used to leverage change within a community. This quantitative and qualitative data was comprised into a interactive map that can be viewed at emoryasj.org/environmental-data-science.

In 2020, I led a research team in a virtual applied ethnographic investigation to uncover the challenges, attitudes, norms and practices of Black farmers in the United States. Goals for this  study were to summarize and empathize with the experiences of Black farmers in order to discover how they are experiencing representation through social media, with the intent of using our findings to amplify the ways in which they are being successfully represented. 

The research informed the design for Acres, a social platform that aims to connect communities to their local farms, farmers, farmers markets, and CSAs. Its design is the result of this ethnographic research, leading agile teams, and mapping a network of local BIPOC growers. The platform addresses that we cannot dismantle systems of oppression without prioritizing the needs of those being oppressed. It tackles the issue of how we can use contemporary digital spaces as a means of connecting with our neighbors to build self-sustaining communities, a mission I carry throughout my work to this day. 

During my three years working at the Zuckerman Museum of Art, I took on many roles, the most notable being my internship with the Education and Outreach Coordinator. The objective of this internship was to gain hands-on experience related to my studies in interactive design, where I set out to apply a range of human-centered design methods in a physical space in order to find ways to improve the guest and gallery attendant experience at the museum. I typically use these methods to design websites or mobile applications, but I intended to expand this knowledge beyond devices and into a space in which human interaction with the space makes or breaks the museum experience. Results of this research included docent training for all staff, an new guest survey, and an updated sign-in experience.