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ShockTalk is a culturally tailored telemental health platform designed to serve Indigenous communities and address unresolved historical and intergenerational trauma, regardless of recognition status. The platform’s vision is to create a comprehensive network of Indigenous mental health providers, including clinicians, traditional healers, peers, and elders. Through an extensive customer discovery process across Indian Country, we developed multiple prototypes that were validated as accessible and culturally resonant by participants.
Urban Indigenous Collective (UIC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based in New York City. As the organization approaches its 5th anniversary, I’ve been focused on reimagining the website to enhance the user experience. The new design strategically uses whitespace to balance the presentation of information-heavy content, including projects, community resources, and text-based materials, while introducing a fresh aesthetic inspired by plant medicine. Built in Framer, the website is set to launch in 2025.
To support Urban Indigenous Collective's (UIC) activism and advocacy surrounding the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) crisis, I designed an AI-powered policy tracker which simplifies the tracking of MMIP legislation. Built with a user-friendly interface, the tool enables non-technical users to efficiently pull data from Legiscan, analyze legislation through ChatGPT-4 using culturally tailored questions, and export the results for UIC’s MMIP Policy Tracker. My focus was on enhancing organizational efficiency by creating an intuitive experience that automates a previously manual process, streamlining decision-making and maximizing impact.
As the first IT Manager at Urban Indigenous Collective (UIC), I was tasked with designing and maintaining a seamless IT infrastructure for staff with varying levels of comfort with technology. I selected “Apple as a platform” for its ease of use and integration, paired with Google services as the backend, providing a reliable, scalable, and cost-efficient system. This decision proved crucial during the 2024 Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage, which disrupted services like Microsoft Teams for many organizations while UIC remained unaffected. By prioritizing simplicity, security, and resilience, I ensured that our IT infrastructure could support UIC’s growth while minimizing technical disruptions and maximizing productivity.
As the Front End Developer and Design Lead at Blue World, I focused on designing and developing MisTel, a platform to help users find nearby medical providers and book appointments. My process was rooted in thorough prototyping, starting with sketches, then progressing through low-fidelity wireframes, high-fidelity wireframes, and ultimately translating the designs into a functional interface. I closely incorporated feedback from stakeholders at each stage, ensuring alignment with their vision. I developed the frontend using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, creating a user-friendly experience based on those designs.
Ever since I was a young child, I have loved technology. I believe that the digital revolution has unlocked the potential for humanity to solve its most pressing issues, while connecting us as a species like never before. While growing up, I watched Steve Jobs's and Sir Johnathan Ive's keynotes in awe. Their message of thinking outside the box to build beautiful solutions to transform the lives of people resonated to my core, and became the entire foundation of my work ethic and approach to life. It became clear to me that through imagination and dedication to hard work, you can change the world. I live and work by the idea of innovation; the refusal to accept the status quo and constantly by constantly seeking to shatter the expectation and raise the bar higher than was previously imagined.
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