Employment History

20+ years of experience creating award-winning art and design in journalism and public policy, leading creative teams and projects in high-intensity environments, and producing visual and digital content that explains policies and tell stories for a diverse range of readers.

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth (Washington, D.C.)

Director of Design and Branding

April 2014 – Present

Lead art and design strategy to present the Center’s policy findings and its funded academic research to policymakers, advocates, and news media audiences across multiple platforms, including print, web, social media, and video.
Lead a design team with two direct reports and several cross-team junior staff members in the creation of user-centered, strategic content creation, supported by best practices and data.
Hired and mentored talent to build the design team with an eye on diversity and inclusion.
Create visual branding for the Center by designing logos and special features, maintaining design style guides, and translating the brand across different platforms.
Manage the Center’s outside vendors and consultants to ensure all website design, improvements, redesigns, and enhancements appear online in a timely manner.
Launched a hybrid print and web production process while establishing best practices while managing budgets and resources.
Produce all collateral for promotional purposes for in-person and virtual events that both elevates the mission of the Center and its network of scholars and in-house experts.
Attend and participate in analytics meetings with an eye on metrics to inform decision making on user-centered design solutions and determine where best to apply resources.

Bloomberg Government (Washington, D.C.)

Graphics Reporter

April 2011 – April 2014

Led visual reporting on the business implications of government actions, working with teams of reporters, analysts, and editors to effectively guide and communicate design decisions internally and deliver high-impact content for audiences.
Consulted reporters, editors, and analysts and worked with data to create interactive and static data visualizations and apps for digital and print media.
Ensured smart usage of visuals by the analyst teams and across Bloomberg Government by instilling a disciplined approach to determine which visual solutions would best elevate the story or project.
Produced explanatory animations for the website and a Sunday morning television show.
Created print graphics for various special projects, among them the annual BGOV 200 catalog that showcased the top 200 government contractors and where they were doing business in the United States.

USATODAY.com

Senior Designer

March 1998 – April 2011

Served as the sole digital designer for the Life, Breaking News, and Sports desks and performed graphics reporting and editing from the field for enterprise projects.
Created news apps in a Flash environment, teamed with developers to construct apps, and trained print designers on digital techniques.
Handled and manipulated data for digital visualizations.
Applied advanced animation techniques to expand the team’s capacity to create motion graphics.

Awards

2013 Edward Ellis Scripps Award, Scripps Howard Finalist; “Untangling the Freedom of Information Act: A Test of Obama’s Transparency Pledge” (group award)
2012 National Press Photographers Association, Monthly award; “The price of cybersecurity”
2011 Society for News Design, Best of digital news design winner 2010 Olympics coverage “Whistler officials move start to slow men’s luge”
2009 Philip Meyer Journalism Award, First Place; Grantham Prize for Excellence “The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America’s Schools” (Awarded to reporters, contributed information graphics)
August 2009, Featured on interactivenarratives.org “Tennis' sonic boom: A look at Andy Roddick’s Swing“
March 2006, 63rd Annual Pictures of the Year International, Second Place, Multimedia Essay “Marines begin a third tour in Iraq“ (group award)
March 2006, 63rd Annual Pictures of the Year International, First Place, Best Use, Major media The Best of Photo Journalism 2006, Honorable Mention “Participants in the past: Civil War camp“ (group awards)
May 2004, Editors & Publishers EPpy Award, Best Use of Rich Media “Steel Rain: The use of cluster weapons in Iraq“ (group award)

Tools and skills

HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, Jira, Trello, Slack, Google Analytics, Wordpress, Salesforce, Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, After Effects and Premiere), and Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, and Powerpoint)

Team-building in a start-up environment, People management, Mentorship, Leadership, Project management, Budget management, Web analytics, Storytelling, Wireframing for user-experience, Reporting for and creation of infographics, Data visualization, Social media graphics layout, Print production and layout, After Effects animation for web and video production, Illustration (vector and rasterized)

Education

University of North Carolina - Interactive Graphics Boot Camp, May 2013

AnimationMentor.com - Certificate, Advanced Character Animation, 2008 – 2009
• Studied the fine art of animation while mentored by animators from Blue Sky Studios, Disney, Pixar and others.

The Poynter Institute - Informational Graphics: Planning and Presenting, October 2003

Virginia Commonwealth University - BFA, Communication Arts & Design, 1991 – 1995
• Participated in the cooperative education program. I worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Design Division in Washington, D.C. from 1992-1993
• Co-President of the Illustrator’s Club of VCU 1994-1995.