i work in ambiguous environments, helping people realise (give form
to) just intentions. in the past, i have operated as a researcher,
product-manager, artist and engineer; while being primarily hired as
a designer. currently, i'm a graduate student at the
interactive-telecommunications-program at new-york-university, on a
near-full scholarship.
helped nyu-students with design-inputs for their projects —
process, or otherwise; as part of the
design-lab at
itp. resigned to become a graduate-assistant instead.
2024 - 2025, 8 mos.
design consultant, at vunet systems
worked 3 days / week, as part of a small product-design team, for
an observability platform that financial institutions use to
identify, diagnose, and resolve errors across their distributed
components. i was brought in to work on ambiguous asks; did so
with curiosity & rigour; and:
synthesised siloed work done over the past 3 years by different
engineering & product teams, to propose a
new system for
people to efficiently consume alerts — which makes up 1/4th of
the product's job. did design-research; made design,
engineering, and product recommendations; led validation
studies; and worked with engineers to plan for deployment.
proposed a
contextually-aware search-bar
— deployable across the platform — to help people find specific
items quicker, and write complex queries without previous
knowledge of the query language. also presented a
javascript-prototype to demonstrate technical feasibility and
digital tactility.
proposed a wyswig-editor to configure different kinds of alerts,
which is a fundamentally new approach in the industry.
spotted platform-wide copy inconsistencies, and proposed a
system for writing action-oriented descriptions across the
platform, to help people better understand what different
modules (and sub-modules) do.
nudged a platform-wide change from card-based-layouts to
list-based-layouts, by demonstrating how taxing it is for the
eye to scan for an item in both layouts, using a self-programmed
webcam-based eyetracking tool.
reimagined what dashboards on the platform could look like, and
nudged front-end teams to move towards independent ui-elements
(and away from frameworks), by proposing a customised
landing-dashboard for cxos, it-heads and reliability-engineers.
resigned to pursue graduate education.
2024, 3 mos.
senior lead (products) at treemouse
moved to another behaviour-design consultancy — chasing depth &
impact at scale — and:
led design research for digital-green, identifying barriers
against the adoption of their farmer-facing chatbot in
jharkhand.
designed a proof-of-concept for a conversational-interface that
is to be deployed in areas with high substance-abuse rates.
ran the inaugral design track for the code-for-gov-tech program,
helping contributors from around the country to design more
usable digital-public-goods.
resigned to grow my own practice.
2022 - 2024, 1yr. 11 mos.
design researcher, at tinkerlabs
worked at a behaviour-design consultancy, with a desire to bring
change into the world, and:
led design-research, ideation, prototyping & testing for private
investors, to help them design a new chain of k-12 schools that
aimed to revolutionise education in the country.
conducted primary research & led conversation-design for the
just-ask chatbot, launched by unfpa, enabling 25,000+ adolescents in rural
madhya-pradesh to get accurate social & sexual health
information.
led ethnographic-research for udhyam-foundation, identifying
enables & barriers for nano-entrepreneurs to achieve business
growth.
led design-research & a ux-redesign for nayi-disha, enabling
caregivers for p.w.d. to swiftly access appropriate resources.
led an appreciative-enquiry for vipla-foundation, identifying
transformative practices at play for a training program that
upskilled women from marginalised communities.
helped redesign resources developed by
international-justice-mission, enabling different stakeholders
to use them more effectively.
designed, tested, and helped re-design an intervention for
project-concern-international, aimed at increasing contraceptive
usage for women in rural-bihar with migrant husbands.
facilitated 15+ behaviour-design workshops for organisations &
higher education institutes in india, such as iim and mica.
resigned in pursuit of depth, impact at scale, and to move out
of bombay.
2022, 7 mos.
xperimenter, at science gallery bengaluru
helped develop transdisciplinary public-engagement programmes for
young adults to interface with the sciences, as part of the
four-person xperimenters cohort, and:
programmed
in between life & death
— a web-game for young adults prompting them to question human
needs.
led graphic design for
earth 2052
— a speculative climate-vision workshop, presented at the 2022
science gallery youth symposium.
conducted various public engagement activities with
college-students, to help them interface with the gallery.
2021, 5 mos.
product design intern, at canonic
worked as a summer intern at a low-code backend development
platform, helping them come out of beta, and:
led design-research and testing for various product features.
proposed a keyboard-first prototype for the entire platform, and
designed micro-animations to make the platform feel nicer.
2020, 2 mos.
design intern, at whitenoise design
worked virtually as a summer-intern in a design studio, and:
contributed to identity, graphic and interface design projects.
proposed and designed whitenoise bridge: an internal
project-management tool to help employees better manage their
work in the studio.
2020, 2 mos.
identity designer, at farmtheory
worked virtually with a startup in bengaluru that wanted to reduce
food-waste by matching local farmers with businesses that don't
mind purchasing 'poor-looking' vegetables, and:
proposed a dynamic identity system.
developed marketing strategies & advertising tactics.
helped them design the interface of their ordering application.
teaching:
2026 - now
graduate assistant, at new york university
helping jesse simpson run the
physical-computing class
at the interactive-media-arts program, by running workshops and
offering in-class-lab-support & office-hours.
2022 - 2025, 3 yrs.
faculty & mentor, at and academy
taught postgraduate-diploma-students at a remote design school
that wishes to make design-education accessible, and:
taught & evolved
think lab
— an experiential learning module, originally developed by
prachi mittal, to foster the creative & critical thinking
potential for new design students — to graphic-design students.
mentored ux-ui-postgraduate-diploma-students on their capstone
projects.
ran a guided 5-week-long preparatory project to help students
realise an end-to-end-digital solution for a local business
vendor, as a precursor to their independent projects later.
2024
workshop: giving up control, at o.p. jindal university, delhi
Made students feel comfortable with the idea of giving up control
to variables to make their storytelling dynamic, reactive and/or
interactive.
for sumitra — a chatbot to help small businesses in rural
india fill extensive applications for government schemes quickly;
by scraping data & recommending relevant schemes.
2021
dcdc-3 communication-design winner, at d'source corona design
challenge