University of Michigan, School of Information (Ann Arbor, Michigan)

Master of Science in Information, Human Computer Interaction and Social Computing

• Merit Scholarship Recipient 2007-2009
• Relevant courses: Evaluation of Systems & Services, Contextual Inquiry & Project Management, Interface & Interaction Design, Design of Complex Websites, Online Communities, Recommender & Reputation Systems, Information Architecture, Cognitive Ergonomics

University of Applied Sciences Cologne (Cologne, Germany)

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science & Media Informatics

• Graduated in top 5%
• Relevant courses: Human-Computer Interaction, Programming & Algorithms, Databases, Multimedia Applications, Computer Graphics, Distributed Systems

Yahoo! Inc., Interaction Designer (Sunnyvale, California)

• Work closely with product managers, engineers, visual designers, interaction designers, web developers and user researchers to develop new functionality and improve the user experience.
• Apply the user-centered experience design practice to Yahoo! Products, create interactive prototypes to flesh out design concepts, communicate ideas, and use in usability tests.
• Develop, evaluate, iterate and implement high quality detailed UI specifications for complex projects, including use cases, flow diagrams, wireframes and final documentation.
• Generate UI systems that advance UED and business objectives and success metrics, incorporate UED guidelines, business requirements and corporate goals into design solutions and work with usability researchers to design test plans and iterate designs throughout user testing.
• Translate usability research findings into design improvements, working with visual designers to improve and refine visual design and consistency.

Yahoo! Inc., Interaction Design Intern (Sunnyvale, California)

• Lead the redesign of the public interaction design pattern library to support scalability
  for more patterns, allowing flexible content and a modular layout
• Evaluated and improved the design pattern publication process by developing an integrated
  tool that supports all phases of the publication process
• Published and revised internal and external design patterns to promote and support
  consistent user experience across Yahoo! properties

Sapient Consulting, Interactive Developer (Düsseldorf, Germany)

• Translated visual designs into completed HTML and optimized development for User Experience
• Established and implemented front-end structures and standards for client projects
• Worked closely with back-end developers to ensure integrity of UI throughout development life-cycle
• Led and worked with teams to manage and execute final concept through completion of project
• Implemented online marketing and ad-serving pilot for multivariate testing

LeanTrak, Inc.,Information Architect (Maumee, Ohio)

• Concept & development of Intranet Information Portal & Content Management System
• Coordinated, designed and developed the launch of corporate website
• Concept & development of project management tool for multi-billion dollar petroleum company
• Design & development of worldwide branding program for multi-billion dollar corporation

New.Media.Design Consulting, Founder (Krefeld, Germany)

• IT consulting and web design for clients in media, legal and IT industry

Eye-Tracking Study, University of Michigan CHCR National Cancer Institute

• Evaluation of website that encourages and supports participants to quit smoking
• Behavioral research and statistical analysis of non-intrusive eye gaze tracking

Financial School Management Application, School Improvement Group

• Concept and development of a financial school benchmarking and management tool
• Leading the user experience and interaction design
• Performing user testing and product feature planning

Ruby on Rails Internship, Ann Arbor based development company

• Agile object oriented programming of a restful open source event management application

CourseNav - Interactive Course Recommendation Tool, UofM Ross School of Business

• Evaluation and design of a prototype using contextual inquiry and usability techniques

Oracle Usability Evaluation, Class Project for UofM Administrative Information Services

• Applying several usability methods like Personas & Scenarios, Heuristic Evaluation, Survey design and Usability Testing

A self-motivated and goal-oriented professional with experience in creating websites from conception to launch, with over ten years of computing experience and a good sense for user centered design.

Software: MS Office Suite, Photoshop, Omnigraffle, Adobe Creative Suite, Visio, Dreamweaver, MindMapping

Usability Methodologies: Personas & Scenarios, Focus Groups, Prototyping, Heuristic Evaluation, Surveys, Contextual Inquiry

Programming: xHTML, CSS, XML, DOM, PHP, JavaScript, SQL, Ajax, Ruby on Rails, SEO, Accessibility

• 1^st Place Social Computing Award by Microsoft.
• 2^nd Place Library 2.0 Design Competition.

• Received 2^ndplace bachelor thesis award at the University of Cologne for research and development of "a web application service for individual user-based sorting and ranking of search engine results".

• 18 months stipend from CDS International/InWent for German-American exchange program.

Fluent in German and English, basic understanding of French.

Photography, Architecture, Triathlon, SOCHI Officer

Executive Board Member of HCI Student Organization (SOCHI), Member of SIGCHI & Information Architecture Institute