Alumni Updates
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Laurel Narizny
MLIS, 2013
In 2015, Laurel began working as a Systems Librarian for Caltech in Pasadena, CA. She was originally hired by Caltech in 2014 as a Metadata Librarian.
Jacob Nelson
MSIM, 2013
Jacob reports:
"Thanks to the University of Washington, I went from being an MSIM grad to being featured in Japan as a global design expert. It's been and continues to be a long and exciting journey. One that started with me sitting underneath cherry blossoms in the quad, filled with uncertainty, wondering how my life would unfold.
"So, how did everything turn out? Better than I ever imagined. Don't get me wrong, it was a brutal journey to say the least. It literally took every ounce of grit in me to make it this far. But it was so worth it. And now, I'm just so thankful. The UW was without a doubt the catalyst that catapulted me into my bright future. Thank you to all my friends, classmates, and amazing teachers — you mean the world to me! I love you all!
"Highlights since graduating ~10 years ago:
- Experience in design, development, brand and marketing, working across a variety of spaces such as digital, print, web, mobile, and gaming.
- Held multiple leadership positions in domestic Japanese, local, and global companies as Head of Design R&D, Head of UX & PX Strategy, Head of Digital Marketing & Brand, and others.
- Led or been a core member in the design, development, branding, and marketing of over a hundred projects, campaigns, websites, apps, and games across six languages and various industries including telecommunications, internet services, mobile gaming, education, and autonomous vehicle industry. All this work has had an incredible impact on business contributing to $50M+ in revenue, earning multiple awards and global recognition in the process.
- A pioneer in the design world, leading the integration of PX (games) and UX (sites, apps) design, as well as researching and working on products and services utilizing future, innovative, and disruptive technologies such as AI, IoT, DLT, NFT, and others to make a positive impact in people's lives and planet for a better, greener and more long-term value oriented future today.
- Worked as an advisor, educator, and teacher, helping companies transform from legacy thinking to modern-day strategy, theory and application, and individuals grow into their full potential making breakthroughs in their professional development.
- Educated and trained hundreds of students and employees in human & eco centered design, experience design (UX・UI・PX), evidence-driven design, design psychology, design thinking, lean UX, lean startup, brand, growth and digital marketing.
- Served as a design mentor at the University of Washington and Staffordshire University where he educated and provided career guidance for design students as they transitioned into the professional world, where they will create our amazing future.
- Founded my own company at the end of 2021 to provide personal and professional development services and education for design, brand, marketing, growth, and product to empower the next generation of thinkers & visionaries to dream big, live now, and inspire change.
- Struck a business partnership with a global Japanese company to sell my design courses. My first course releases next month.
- Multiple design seminars educating Japanese and people globally on UX, UI, and PX design.
- Featured in Japan as a global design expert talking about the future of design in Japan. The interview was in Japanese of course :) Read the interview. Translate it: https://www.deepl.com/ja/translator
Awards & accolades
- Multiple Google Play and App Store features for mobile games: "Featured game", "Top charts"
- Global Carrier Awards 2018: "Best marketing team"
Publications
Professional and academic design publications in English and Japanese. This includes a design education series on PX & UX design, and author of a joint paper with The University of Tokyo on affective computing on mental health (gaming IoT for healthcare).
Ezra Park
Informatics, 2013
After working for Microsoft for several years, Ezra moved to work at Google in 2023 as a product manager.
Ezra Park
Informatics, 2013
Ezra has been the product management lead working on the Surface Duo for the last 11 months at Microsoft, which recently just announced and released the Surface Duo after many months of hard work. Ezra was also promoted to principal.
Suzann Parker
MSIM, 2013
Suzann started at Amazon in 2014 as a Program Manager (PMO) in the FLASH group, an internal team that develops the company's financial ledger platform, working with other Amazon groups to launch new business ventures. Suzann's job includes managing the portfolio of these projects by prioritizing, ensuring requirements are ready for engineering, and managing resource allocation.
Chaitrali Pimparkar
Informatics, 2013
In 2015, Chaitrali left her consulting role at Deloitte Seattle to join the People Operations team at Google in the Bay Area. As a People Programs Specialist, she uses her background from the Informatics program to analyze large sets of data, identify key trends, and develop tools to drive and measure HR program effectiveness globally.
Ann Pool
MLIS, 2013
Ann recently celebrated her three-year anniversary as a taxonomist for Echo Services, mostly supporting Microsoft along with a short period on a Nike project in 2018.
Renato Rodriguez
MLIS, 2013
Renato is a documents archivist at the San Diego History Center. Previously, he was the Digital Resources Librarian for the San Diego Natural History Museum's Biodiversity Research Center of the Californias.
Ansel Santosa
Informatics, 2013
After five years at Pioneer Square Labs, Ansel reported in 2021 that he is now helping farmers shoot weeds with lasers at Carbon Robotics.
Carolyn Scoville
Informatics, 2013
Carolyn is working as a software engineer at GoDaddy.