Human Factors PhD who ships products that engage, enable, and empower. 10+ years turning technical knowledge and applied research into XR and AI systems.
Published spatial computing solutions for the HoloLens and Meta Quest, peer-reviewed research at Microsoft, and local LLM agents running on owned hardware.
Now building for the next wave of ambient computing using AI smart glasses. Equally credible in a research lab, a code environment, or a stakeholder meeting.
Pivoted the company through the pandemic from an internal AR utility to a commercial XR platform; owned the call, the roadmap and the design direction.
Designed a codeless authoring model and networking layer, to democratize the building and hosting of immersive presentations for non-technical users.
Led a globally distributed team of 10 software engineers and 3D artists through the shift from flat UI conventions to embodied spatial interaction.
Instituted dogfooding and structured UX studies with early adopters, to ensure the release scope followed validated behavior rather than internal assumption.
Adopting latest trends in AI and everyday wearable smart glasses: published an Even Realities G2 deep dive (custom AI proxies, Terminal Mode); 10K+ views.
Spatial User Experience DesignerFeb 2020 – Dec 2020
Designed storyboards and 3D assets for immersive presentations; learned about optical passthrough for AR headsets, including lighting, materials, and shaders.
Prototyped interactions and user interface designs for HoloLens and Quest: designed universal control schemes to work for both hand tracking and controllers.
Authored a Spatial OS white paper; a seven-layer stack covering: agency, interaction, interface, application, operating system, hardware, and the AR cloud.
Microsoft · Applied Systems R&D Consultant (contract via AfterNow)
Jul 2021 – Jun 2025
Led optical computing research at Microsoft Cloud Operations + Innovation attacking the von Neumann bottleneck in AI clusters using photonic computing.
Applied systems thinking and designed the approach end-to-end; taking the project through POC and MVP using only COTS hardware (CUDA, NCCL, C++).
Demonstrated high-speed error-free photonic computing, targeting data center energy-efficiency; paper accepted in principle at Nature Communications.
Consulted Microsoft Research on Project Malta, targeting equity and inclusion in hybrid meetings. Authored a 4D framework mapping 48 hybrid configurations: (X) Embodiment, (Y) Space ownership, and (Z) Interface type, against (Node Color) implementation feasibility; built in ShapesXR, presented in VR using Prez.
Built an AR hardware-training system from concept to on-site deployment, using Azure Kinect for body tracking, projection mapping, and 3D-printed components; enabling technicians to rehearse server repairs without risk of bodily injury or equipment damage. Validated with technicians and managers.
UXS Design · Founder
Jan 2017 – Present
Designed and published two productivity apps for Even Realities smart glasses: HUDs that deliver information to enrich daily life, not distract from it.
Built JB Proxie, a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) agent with clear guardrails, ready to answer questions about my experience and design philosophy; Qwen3.6 35B on Ollama + FastAPI, self-hosted on an NVIDIA DGX Spark; self-critical, it flags knowledge gaps by messaging me for human-in-the-loop updates.
Delivered VR walkthroughs and 3D renders that turned skepticism into sign-off for clients including Hauser & Wirth, Great Wolf Resorts, Ellen Digital Ventures.
Conducted R&D on pediatric rehabilitation technology for hospital playground; extending doctoral work on accessible design and adaptive multimodal interfaces.
Second Studio · VP of Product
Sep 2016 – Jan 2020
Built an enterprise SaaS product for Git-style collaborative design in VR from zero to one; prototyped interaction schemes and UI elements directly in Unity.
Proved the working product by demoing live remote collaboration between Los Angeles and San Francisco for the HTC Vive X Accelerator program.
First place, Northeastern RISE:2012 Interdisciplinary research, plus the Excellence in Research special award which came with a $1,000 grant.
Featured in The Boston Globe and NEU's $1.4B Empower funding campaign.
7 peer-reviewed publications, incl. various conferences, the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Intelligent Data Analysis, and accepted in principle at Nature Communications. — Google Scholar
62 Google Scholar citations across 7 conference and journal
publications. Additional publications pending.
2 theses: MSc and PhD · Winner of NSF Grant, Oculus Grant, and NEU's ‘Excellence in
Research’ and ‘Interdisciplinary Research’ Awards
Want to learn more, or discuss an opportunity to work together?
The Wheel of Human-Centered Design maps the skills, methods, and mindsets that guide
my practice across the pillars of Management, Strategy, Research, and Development. It
follows my Who, Why, How, and What methodology, to prioritize the user first and
foremost. Click here to
download a copy of my WHCD.
