Amelia Abreu

I'm a design researcher, writer and consultant living in Portland, Oregon. I've been writing on and about the internet since 1999, and working in the tech industry since 2007. My writing has appeared in publications such as the New Inquiry, Motherboard, Model View Culture and The Hairpin and featured by the BBC and Wired. As a User Experience Researcher and Designer, I've collaborated with teams at Mozilla, Nike, Intel, Microsoft and other technology-driven organizations, cultural and educational institutions, startups and nonprofits. 

My best work centers on collaboration, learning, and facilitation, and I'm fascinated by the ways that humans (and machines) think, learn, and teach each other. In 2016 I launched the UX Night School, offering fun, relevant professional development for grownups with jobs. 

From 2007 to 2013, I taught students at University of Washington, while working on a PhD in Information Science.  Prior to that, I was a faculty librarian at the University of Houston, and got a Master's in Information Studies at University of Texas-Austin (🤘) and a BA from the Evergreen State College (🌲).  

My work is at the intersection of people, business, and technology, and my approach is nimble, agile, and data-informed. While I specialize in qualitative and iterative methods, I often collaborate with data science and analytics teams. The goal is to answer not only the, "when" "what" and "how many" questions, but to understand the human context: the "why" questions. 

I'm a process person. For me, improving the user experience comes from empathy and engagement across the team. "User experience" isn't just wireframes or prototypes, but something shaped throughout the product lifecycle, the creative and engineering process. Connecting with users, collecting data in a thoughtful way, and generating actionable insights allows us not only to build better products, but to work together better.