I was born and raised in Detroit Michigan. It’s an incredible city with an unmatched strength and resilience with its riches to rags to riches story! As vibrant and thriving as the city is, my European roots were pulling me across the pond, so in 2015 I moved to Dublin. I lived there happily for two years before moving with my partner in crime to London, UK!
My background in education and management led me to join Memorisely as the Bootcamp Community Manager. My husband took Zander’s UX/UI design class and fell in love with the community. He soon joined Memorisely full time and it wasn’t long before I followed suit!
🎶 Well, I tumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen, pour myself a cup of ambition 🎶
Good ol’ Dolly P…
I aim (emphasis on aim) to start my day completely detached from the screen, ignoring my phone and my laptop for the first 30 minutes/ hour of the day. I hydrate and either head to the gym, hit my yoga mat or head out on my shiny new Kona Hybrid Bike 🚲 which is definitely my preferred method of exercise and transportation!
After I’m stretched and ready to go, I make myself a cup of RASA and head to my workspace which is occasionally shared with my part-time pup Peggy! She belongs to our fabulous neighbour and we have become her fairy-god-pup-parents.
Next, I crack my MacBook air open and review my ever evolving to-do list. Check my emails, check any messages from my fellow Mem-fam and head over to Slack to see how the teachers and students are doing in their amazing bootcamps. Every day is different so I hop on any meetings I might have, create some loom videos, organise some killer events with the Mem community team and when I’m not on a call or recording, I have my favourite music or UX/UI Podcast playing in the background.
After I finish my work for the day, I turn off notifications and head to the kitchen to whip up dinner with my husband. IF there is a new Marvel, The Rings of Power or House of the Dragon episode on, we will definitely jump into that, otherwise we head outside for an evening walk along The Thames.
Finally, I battle between scrolling through instagram and ending my day with a book or meditation to calm my brain and get myself ready for bed. Before falling asleep, my husband and I have a non-negotiable tradition of sharing what our highlight of the day was so that the last thought that goes through our heads is a positive one 😴
Ahh it’s gotta be getting to know the amazing students that join our bootcamps. What an incredible way to meet like minded people from all over the world with completely different life experiences. I’m a highly social butterfly and love to chat, so what better way to satisfy my itch to interact, than to do it with students who help me continue to cultivate a global perspective!
Working in education is the strongest experience I have in my arsenal. Teaching, in my opinion, is the highest form of learning. To absorb a concept, process it with your own perspective and relay it in a way that someone from a completely different nature is then able to understand… what an incredibly beautiful experience. My journey in education from University, to teaching in urban and suburban schools in Detroit, Michigan, to working in an independent school in central London, has brought me to Memorisely in the most incredible way 👩🏫
I like to maintain a biophilic environment so I keep a little bit of life on my wooden desk! I have also created a fun piece of greenery that doubles as a sensory wall 🌿 I use a Macbook Air and an iPad to keep my office mobile!
Spotify and Autodesk Sketchbook are my must-haves! Music and Art are everything - I have a playlist for every mood and I love to draw so sketching on the go is a must!
Keep a routine. Life is wonderfully messy and will constantly be throwing you curve balls. If you stick to some sort of a routine, it will help keep you focused and on track to reach your goals! I like to use my fridge as a whiteboard to help keep to my routine. As I make my way through my tasks, I can wipe them off the fridge and it’s not only super satisfying but it allows me to visually see how I progress 🤓
My Kona Dew Plus hybrid bike 🚲She is a beaut and an absolute dream to ride! This baby gets me around London smoothly and in style 💁🏻♀️
I had a realisation lately that really changed my perspective on building on other people’s work. I used to loathe covers of songs. I always thought it was a form of cheating or ripping off an artist and I went out of my way to avoid listening to them. After watching Get Back, a documentary on The Beatles, I completely changed my perspective. Paul McCartney taught me that actually, covering an artist is how music grows and develops and changes into new exciting genres. Covering a song is not cheating, but a form of flattery and progression. This concept can be applied to design in that a designer shouldn’t always be aiming to reinvent the wheel, but to grow and develop ideas from their peers 🤟🏼
THE BEST! Our closely knit team is everything - We have such a solid group of humans working their hardest to make Memorisely the incredible community it is today. What stands out the most to me is the feeling that you’re not just a number, not just a replaceable cog in a giant machine and that is very important to me. 🫶🏼
Celebrate the small stuff. A designer’s work is never done and sometimes the never ending list of things to do can make you feel like you aren’t actually making progress. Track every little win, no matter how small. Document the wonderful failures that helped nudge you down a better path and look back occasionally, to where you have been. This perspective is so important because only then can you see just how far you’ve come. 🛣
IF I have to choose one thing, it’s gotta be drawing. I find it wonderfully therapeutic and occasionally rewarding! My interest in art came at a young age and I never really put the pen down, it has only transformed into an apple pencil ✐ I have recently switched my doodle focus to designing tattoos. There are currently 5 people in the world with my art permanently etched into their skin and that, to me, is mind blowing 🤯
