I grew up in a suburb of Charlotte, NC and attended school in a rural area east of the city. After graduating from West Stanly High School in 2012, I attended the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. There I discovered the women’s rugby team and played all four years of college, and I took on the roles of Social Media Coordinator sophomore year, Vice President junior year, and President senior year.
My work in social media for the team inspired me to actually major in Media and Journalism, with a specialization in multimedia. But it was my teammates themselves that challenged me and made me further unpack all I thought I knew about gender, sexuality, and race. I realized I also needed to major in Women’s and Gender Studies to further learn and understand my privilege and my own intersecting identities.
After college I began work with Untappd as a design specialist, working on designing and coding digital and print menus for breweries, bars, and restaurants to display the beer menus they create in the Untappd for Business platform. I also became certified as a rugby referee and found a way I could give my best back to rugby.
Since 2017 I have officiated countless rugby matches in both the men’s and women’s game at all levels from youth to international. As a queer woman, I stand out from the “typical” rugby referee and I am proud to show other women, girls, LGBTQ+ individuals that not only do we belong in the sport, but we can be an authority in it.
In the past year and a half, I have transitioned at Untappd to taking on a significant amount of UX/product design work, while still handling my previous duties. I work closely with our senior product designer on a daily basis and contribute to almost all of UTFB’s ongoing product design projects. Last spring, I owned and designed our new Contactless Tools feature from start to finish. I am eager to continue learning as much as I can about UX and product design.
