Teaching STEM Club at Unity Prep

Teaching with my colleague Kyle at Unity Prep in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville neighborhoods of Brooklyn.

Our group of us from our team at Razorfish/Publicis Groupe developed a curriculum to teach at the STEM Club at Unity Preparatory School in Brooklyn, starting mid 2020. Since then, we’ve taught each semester, expanding and developing our curriculum along the way. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed teaching this smart bunch of kids about AR/VR technology, collaborative sketching and user experience design in general.

We began by teaching remotely, so it was a real joy to join them in person this year for the winter session, when we brought in Google cardboard VR kits donated by the good folks at Google and had a great time demonstrating how to use them with the students. Each student got to take a VR kit home, too.

Teaching at Unity Prep

Along with some of my colleagues from Publicis Sapient, I’ve been helping teach a STEM club periodically at Unity Preparatory Charter School in Brooklyn. I’ve been covering off on collaborative sketching and user experience design. This week my team mate Sarah and I finally got to teach the kids in person after a number of times teaching them remotely during COVID-19. The kids were whip smart, funny, and super engaged, and we had a wonderful time teaching them about UX, usability testing and accessibility.

These Years - Photoville Exhibit

“Respect” - Photo by Robert Stribley

I’m excited to announce that my photography will be featured in the School of Visual Arts Continuing Education exhibit These Years at the Photoville Festival in Brooklyn Bridge Park from September 18th through December 1st.

Brooklyn Product Design Meetup

Speaking at the Brooklyn Product Design Meetup. Photo by Brian Hui.

After some 16 months of pandemic lockdown, it was wonderful to join everyone at the Brooklyn Product Design Meetup in DUMBO in mid July to present on the topic of “Designing for Privacy in an Increasingly Public World.” This was, no doubt, the first public presentation many people had attended in months and my first time public speaking, not online but “in real life” since early 2020. Here’s a video of the talk on YouTube. Presentation on Slideshare.

NYU Certificate in Global Affairs

After working on it for approximately three year, I have completed the Certificate in Global Affairs at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs. My studies included classes in International Relations, International Law, International Political Economy, Foundations of Transnational Security, Gender in International Affairs, and Energy and the Environment. I began the certificate on campus but continued with most of studies during the pandemic. Needless to say, between work and these classes, I spent a lot of time suspended before a screen in Zoom sessions during COVID.

Essay: The Dark UX Pattern Which May Bring Down Matt Gaetz

My essay “The dark UX pattern which may bring down Matt Gaetz” was featured by the UX Collective on their Medium publication, which has almost 420,000 followers. The piece explains how Venmo’s default payment options may have made the Florida Representative’s shady private life public data.

Essay: No Transit

Image accompanying my essay: Activists from the human rights group, Doctors for Camp Closures, hold illuminated signs on a freeway overpass next to the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, California, in February 2020. The group is calling for the end of US immigration detention centers and the US policy of returning asylum seekers to Mexico and Central America to wait for their asylum court appointments. EFE/EPA/DAVID MAUNG

In January 2021, my piece on the mistreatment of transgender asylum seekers in the United States was published on Open Global Rights.

Trump administration enacted an unprecedented reduction in the number of asylum seekers admitted to the United States—admissions are only about 16% of the cap the Obama administration established in 2016. Transgender asylum seekers, who are already more at-risk than typical applicants, now face tremendous hurdles and abuse as they try to survive in the opaque confines of this increasingly constrictive immigration system.

Immigrant Song Podcast

Immigrant Song is my ongoing project about undocumented immigration within the United States. It’s also now also a podcast. In each episode we will discuss a specific and timely topic on the subject of immigration. You’ll hear facts and figures but also interviews with people who are experts or who’ve been affected by our immigration laws. You can find the podcast on Apple, Google Play, Overcast, Pocketcasts, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Spotify, TuneIn, and other popular platforms for podcasts.  

You can also follow this project on Facebook and Twitter.