BackgroundMore
Born in Pennsylvania in January of 1993, I entered a world of two extremes: my father's alcohol-infused intensity and my mother's deep, quiet affection. My early years were defined by my time on the ice. I loved hockey for its simple rhythms; skating and the feeling of being part of a team where "we" mattered more than "me." But as I grew older, I felt a steady pull away from the rink and toward a quiet world of my own. In my bedroom, many nights were spent getting lost in stories with action figurines and the endless exploration found in the digital landscapes of video games. Unsurprisingly, rote learning at Germantown Academy hardly interested me. But when I discovered Apple computers, everything changed.
By eighteen, I was teaching myself how to code, book after book, tutorial after tutorial — not to build a career, but to simply build a door to a digital world that felt limitless. First Python, then Java, C, Objective-C, then JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and countless other frameworks, I quickly fell in love with web and mobile development. “Design in the browser” was my very first introduction to creation in the digital realm, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
From 2011-2015, I studied web and mobile development through Information Technology and Software Engineering programs at the Rochester Institute of Technology. I spent my days and nights sitting in front of the blue light of my black MacBook laptop building personal websites, side projects, school projects; the ideas just kept coming. It was in that quiet isolation that I really found my focus. I wasn't just learning a skill; it was my first form of true creative expression.
My relentless drive eventually took me to Seattle to intern at Amazon for two summers (on the Kindle and Logistics teams), then to work there full-time. I started my professional career at Amazon building prototypes based on other designers’ ideas, but as time passed, I couldn’t deny what I had always wanted: to be the mind behind the design, not just the implementation. Within the first year, I transitioned into a full-time user experience designer, creating features for millions of Amazon drivers delivering packages all over the world. I later worked on voice technology software on the Alexa Smart Home team and a secret hardware project focused on human connection on Amazon Glow. And as my time at the company lengthened, I found myself enjoying the process of writing and pitching higher-level strategic thinking. Around the midpoint of my tenure, I had this burning sense that I was in need of a change.
I turned inward toward the arts, then. Reading. Philosophy. It was music I first embraced — learning to play electric guitar, singing, writing lyrics at Dusty Strings — then visual art came — learning to create three-dimensional, animated worlds in Blender and the Adobe Suite — then creative writing — taking Jack Grapes’ Method Writing classes every week, where I first drafted stories of an old man and a boy by the beach. My hobbies started to stack, and so too did my sense for the balance between utility and beauty in creativity. I was evolving, no longer just designing digital houses for other people’s visions; I had finally begun to manifest my own artifacts that reflected my growing philosophies.
In 2023, I moved to San Diego to lead a design team at Riot Games. Working alongside incredible teammates and senior leadership, I honed my ability to develop organizational strategy for new-to-world products, align team structures with business goals, and write comprehensive frameworks for live viewing experiences and fandom modalities. I spent that season mentoring designers, building Riot Esports Network and CompeteTFT, leveraging AI to evolve my strategic workflow, and shaping high-altitude strategy documents.
Yet after more than a decade of building at scale, I realized I needed to step back to replenish the source. I had spent years pushing hard in high-intensity environments, and I wanted to create enough space to understand what I wanted to build next.
In early 2026, I stepped away from full-time product work and gave myself space to explore what came next. Since then, I've spent much of my time writing, reading, building independent digital projects, exploring the natural world, and following questions about culture, evolutionary psychology, and what it means to live well.
That time brought me back to something familiar: the simple pleasure of making things. These days, that might mean writing a story about an old man and a boy, building a website, experimenting with AI and code, or exploring new creative ideas. Although the medium may change, the instinct remains the same: to follow my curiosity and uncover new treasures along the way.