Design that moves
organizations.

USCIS had no design operations function. There was no component library, no governance framework, no shared tooling, and no design community across 18 siloed delivery teams. The role of Design System Program Manager did not exist before I was hired to create it.

I built the function from the ground up. When my branch chief went on a six-month detail, I stepped into an expanded leadership role — meeting individually with all design teams and product managers across the organization to ensure work was being delivered to our standards, maintaining design governance, and keeping the program moving without interruption. I was the design voice at the leadership level while also continuing to execute on the full program.

Zero loss of momentum during the leadership gap. Every initiative — the component library, design critiques, compliance audits, playbooks, and the CTO-commissioned journey mapping — continued on schedule. The organization did not lose a step.

USCIS had 100+ designers working in fragmented tools with no shared component system and no way to ensure consistency across public-facing products. Getting a commercial design tool like Figma approved and operational inside a federal agency is not a simple procurement — it requires navigating IT security reviews, legal approvals, SSO integration, and whitelisting processes that can take months or fail entirely.

I drove the entire Figma adoption from start to finish — authoring the procurement requirements, managing IT and security approvals, working directly with Figma's team to get the platform whitelisted and SSO implemented in the federal environment, and personally onboarding 100+ designers. I then built the USCIS Figma Component Library: a 508-compliant system of reusable components that became the agency's single source of truth. I serve as Figma administrator and plugin approver for 1,000+ non-design users across USCIS.

The library eliminated redundant work across 18 delivery teams, standardized accessibility compliance across the full portfolio, and has been adopted by DHS headquarters as the shared foundation for the broader federal design ecosystem. The release of Design System 2.0 established it as a stable, scalable platform for the agency's long-term design work.

Designers across USCIS worked in siloed contractor teams with no awareness of each other's work, no shared critique practice, and no design community. There was no mechanism for quality control, no peer review, and no shared standards. Design happened in isolation on every team.

I built a cohesive, collaborative design culture from the ground up — launching the Design System Working Group as the governance backbone, a cross-team Figma Fridays critique, a Solo Crit program for designers working as a team of one, and 1:1 design lead syncs as regular operational touchpoints. I authored the USCIS Design Crit Handbook and USCIS Design Quality Playbook — the first resources of their kind in the post-18F federal design landscape — and share them actively with other agencies filling the gap left by 18F's disbanding.

A connected design community with shared standards, shared tools, and genuine visibility into each other's work — across 18 teams that previously operated in complete isolation. Colleagues across USCIS and partner agencies regularly seek me out for accessibility and design guidance. The work now extends beyond USCIS walls.

Federal websites are legally required to adhere to the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) under the 21st Century IDEA Act — but compliance had never been formally evaluated across USCIS's full portfolio. Teams were building without a clear standard and without any feedback loop. The legal exposure was real and unaddressed.

I designed and led the agency's first comprehensive audit cycle — reviewing all public-facing sites and applications for USWDS compliance, accessibility gaps, and design quality, then translating findings into actionable remediation guidance for each team. I presented findings agency-wide as part of the OIT TechTalk program, putting the work in front of the full Office of Information Technology.

Concrete remediation priorities identified across the full product portfolio for the first time in the agency's history. A repeatable evaluation framework established for ongoing compliance maturity. Legal risk surfaced and addressed before it became a liability.

508 compliance is the floor, not the ceiling. Federal teams treat accessibility as a checkbox audited at the end of a project — but the gap between technically compliant and actually usable is enormous, especially for the immigrant populations USCIS serves: people navigating complex legal processes in a second language, on mobile devices, often under significant stress.

I led multiple initiatives to raise the bar: coaching designers on integrating accessibility upstream, building a11y review into design crits and approval workflows, consulting directly with the 508 auditing team to identify gaps, and inviting a 508 auditing expert to present firsthand to our team. I established USCIS as an accessibility authority across the federal design community.

Recognition from the Army Corps of Engineers for the accessibility standards work coming out of USCIS — crossing agency boundaries and influencing practice beyond our own walls. Colleagues from other federal agencies regularly seek out USCIS's approach as a model. For me, accessibility and equity are the same commitment: designing for all people, not just the ones who are easiest to design for.

USCIS.gov is not a typical government website. It serves millions of immigrants, applicants, and families navigating life-altering legal processes — 5,000+ pages, 33,000+ page views per hour, 65% on mobile. A confusing form, an inaccessible interface, or a poorly worded piece of content can have real consequences for someone's immigration case, family reunification, or path to citizenship.

I partner with designers across delivery teams to provide guidance on content strategy, plain language, information architecture, and design best practices — serving as an embedded quality partner and design standard-bearer across the full portfolio.

Teams equipped to build equitable experiences that work for everyone who depends on them — regardless of language, literacy level, device, or ability. Designing only for the easy case isn't good enough when the stakes are a visa application or a citizenship petition.

USCIS had never formally documented the end-to-end applicant experience. Leadership had no holistic view of how an applicant navigates the system from initial filing through final decision — making it impossible to identify systemic gaps, prioritize improvements, or understand where the human experience breaks down. This gap existed for the entire history of the agency.

By special request of the CTO and commissioned by the incoming CIO, I am leading the agency's first-ever end-to-end journey mapping initiative. I completed the I-130 (family petition) flow and am now building the N-400 (naturalization) experience on that foundation, capturing both the external applicant journey and the internal USCIS staff and systems that support it.

What began as a journey map has grown into full service blueprints — surfacing systemic gaps and opportunities that have never been formally documented, and giving leadership a strategic view of the applicant experience that did not previously exist. A foundational artifact the agency will use to prioritize improvements for years to come.

IBM CloudPak for Automation was a complex SaaS suite spanning multiple legacy on-premise products being transformed into a unified cloud experience — with no consistent design standards, no accessibility framework, and no research program to ground design decisions in real user needs.

Over seven years I worked across the full IBM design stack: designing AI-powered prototypes and enterprise UX solutions for clients in the US, Canada, and UK on the Watson Implementations Team; driving platform-wide consistency on CloudPak as Senior UX Design Lead; building a research program from nothing; and serving as Accessibility Focal — coaching designers, running WCAG audits, and embedding a11y into the design process.

A solo Watson demo secured a $16M IBM contract. The research program engaged 25+ external client participants within its first year. Accessibility became a design practice rather than a compliance checkbox. I achieved IBM Enterprise Design Thinking Coach level — the highest practitioner certification — and mentored new hires through the Patterns Program.