On April 2, 2021, representatives from Microsoft held a panel discussion and Q&A for HCDE students to learn about UX Design, Research, Project Management, and Program Management a Microsoft.
PANEL MODERATOR
Gordon Patterson
Gordon is a 2016 graduate of the MS HCDE program and began working at Microsoft on the Microsoft Advertising team (formally known as Bing Ads) directly after completion of the program. Gordon has been at Microsoft for 5 years and dedicates his extra time in diversity and inclusion projects, specifically centered in recruitment and sourcing from diverse universities and avenues such as Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). Gordon is also a committed alumni of the HCDE program who tries to give back to the community that helped build his career through networking, mentorship, and admissions support. Gordon is ultimately excited for the next generation of UX specialist to enter the industry with even more knowledge and insight for the next wave of machine learning, augmented reality, and privacy-focused technologies. He will be moderating the UX Careers Panel discussion.
PANELISTS
Veronika Sipeeva
Research
Veronika is a design researcher on the Office Planning & Research team at Microsoft, focusing on the small business space. Previously, she led research projects at a Pacific Northwest health insurance company, Premera Blue Cross, where she helped establish and champion research practices, mentored and equipped teams with tools and methods for improving customer experience. Veronika holds a master’s degree in Human Centered Design and Engineering from the University of Washington, serves on the HCDE Alumni Leadership board and is a co-chair for the volunteer committee for the UXPA International Conference. She is passionate about helping others discover the value of research and strongly believes that the best work often comes out from including diverse perspectives and partnering with others.
Zoë Ene
Design
Zoë Chinonso Ene is a Nigerian-American designer, currently on the Microsoft Teams Mobile Design team. She has a BA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Industrial Design and has spent the last 3 years at Microsoft focusing on driving design and usability consistency and envisioning cohesive futures for the Business Apps suite. She enjoys developing new design concepts and innovating with like-minded people and is a firm believer in the power of "designing with" rather than "designing for”. She is passionate about decolonizing design.
Erica Jorgensen
Content
Erica Jorgensen is a user experience content designer and content strategist who focuses on content research, analytics, and optimization. She’s a former journalist who’s written for global brands (Expedia and Microsoft), nonprofits (Premera Blue Cross), and startups (Amazon). Erica has also taught at the University of Washington graduate program in Communication and Digital Media and mentors early-in-career content designers through Hexagon UX and Women That UX. She’s also an active member of the Seattle Content Strategy Meetup group. She earned a BA in English and creative writing at the University of Connecticut and an MA in journalism from the University of Missouri.
Amani Dye
Producer/PM
Amani is an engineer/user-experience designer hybrid. Her undergraduate degree is in Computer Science but was drawn into the world of UX after working side-by-side with amazing Designers and User Researchers. Those partnerships inspired her to complete a HCDE Masters degree in 2016 and become a strategic bridge between the engineering and design disciplines. In her current role, as a Design Studio Manager, she sees the bigger picture across organizational boundaries and use this advantage to empower creatives to do their best work and find gaps in business goals and customer promises.
Cammy Vasquez
Recruiting
Cammy is a UW graduate, who currently leads our University PhD & Specialized recruiting team. UX – Design & User Research falling into the specialized category within her team. Cammy has been recruiting since the late 90’s, where she got her start recruiting Human Factor Engineers and UI architects before UX within product teams were a thing! She fell in love with Design, and quickly became a recruiting SME on the west coast and started her own UX recruiting boutique called I-recruit where she hired UX up-and-coming talent from students to executives into many start-ups across Seattle and in the Bay. 11 years ago, Cammy joined Microsoft as the first industry UX recruiter, as Microsoft was heavily invested in attracting and hiring this transformational talent to the company. She spent 7 years supporting all the Design studios across Microsoft as a UX industry recruiter, and eventually moved into a new role as lead for a new specialized Design sourcing team, that scoured the globe looking for the best creative talent in the world for our inclusive and dynamic Microsoft studios! Currently, Cammy’s remit has evolved into taking on PhD & Research for University talent. However, she has a big soft spot for her UX roots; and loves mentoring, connecting, & networking within the UX community.