Melissa is a UX designer passionate about building trust and using tech for social good. Melissa has a specialty in trauma-informed design — she won a grant in 2017 to work on this topic together with a nonprofit. Since then, she has helped design for people who have experienced human trafficking, PTSD, substance use disorder, and serious mental illness.
Melissa also teaches design to graduate students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and to others through her own company, Birdcall.
She has been working in the UX and content strategy field for more than 14 years. Previously she led the UX effort at the sports tech start-up Teamworks in Durham, North Carolina, USA. Prior to that role, she consulted on UX and content projects across the US for five years. She helped small startups in the American Underground, called the “startup capital of the South,” as well as large organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Melissa has also worked for Lenovo, Bloomberg News, and Duke University. She has a Master’s degree in Visual Communication from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
