About Me

Most recently, through Engine Co. 4, my design practice, I am designing interventions for Alzheimer's patients and apps that help critically ill patients stay on their medication. I also co-founded PlayNice, which makes clinically proven games for mental health. MindLight, our first commercial release, has repeatedly proven as effective as CBT for childhood anxiety, or better, across multiple trials. With the Provost of Erasmus University Rotterdam, I led the product strategy and initial design of ROOM, a stepped-care platform now used by thousands of students, and redesigned Attenteo, an evidence-based app for managing ADHD without medications.

Previously, as VP of Design and Usability at Anthem.AI, I built Anthem's (now Elevance Health) first corporate Design and User Research organization. At Anthem I led efforts for clinician and patient-facing AI and ML products across the commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid businesses. At the American Medical Association, I saw up close what physicians face when innovating with data while practicing medicine in the modern age, which sparked my co-founding of Health2047, the AMA's innovation lab.

As Creative Director for Microsoft LiveLabs, still the most impressive innovation group I have ever seen, my team turned cutting-edge research into products. Launching the first Microsoft Surface, I used analog methods, storyboarding and narrative, against deep user research to build an interface that had no precedent. Before that, in London, I built a 120-person CG feature animation studio at Ealing Studios, from empty building to full production in eighteen months. Despite having an incredible 3D pipeline, I relearned the power of physical models to give teams a shared understanding. Before that, as Head of Visual Development for Electronic Arts' Worldwide Studios, I worked across twelve studios. Three things from those years that I still use. Design for agency and aspiration. A great game's economy has to be tuned carefully. And crucially, if you don't have a clear, compelling vision before the coding starts, you never will.

I'm an early adopter of technology, but when in doubt, I push my teams to reach for quick, disposable prototypes to understand something. My mentors prized craft, craftsmanship, and the power of making things, and that still holds. I've been awarded utility and design patents for the Centrum package, for the first Microsoft Surface, and for a clinical AI interface now pending. The Centrum package was awarded an IOPP Silver Star at the 1995 Ameristar Packaging Competition and has been in continuous production ever since.

I've taught workshops on designing with emotion for NASA, DARPA, and the WHO. I'm a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon and a member of BAFTA. I served on the ACM SIGGRAPH Board of Directors for six years, formed and led its Strategy Committee for three of them, and created Real-Time Live, which has ranked in the conference's top three for attendee satisfaction for sixteen years. I live in San Francisco with my family and hound, and am happiest rowing in the Bay.