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Workshops, Presentations, Clubs, and More!
Workshops, Presentations, Clubs, and More!
In addition to my design and research work, I also like to get involved in the community. This page discusses some of the workshops I've led, presentations I've given, and other activities to get involved, meet new people, and collaborate.
Workshops
Workshops
As the Digital Accessibility Intern at TechSmith, I led four workshops for people in a wide range of roles. In spreading the word about accessibility, the workshops were for designers, developers, quality assurance (QA), and customer support and aimed to build enthusiasm and give people actionable takeaways to bring into their work. You can read more about the workshops on my TechSmith Accessibility page!
Also while at TechSmith, I co-led a design workshop for high school students considering a career in tech. During a February 2026 visit to our headquarters, I mentored one of the groups during a design exercise.
On a different note, in February 2026 I was invited to a journalism class at my alma mater, Michigan State University (MSU). Each semester, professor Joe Grimm and his students publish a book in the Bias Busters series about respectful questions you can ask to get to know people from marginalized groups. Students played The Braille Bistro as an empathy building exercise as they prepare for their research. The next publication will focus on questions for blind or vision impaired people, and it will feature The Braille Bistro!
A dozen journalism students played The Braille Bistro in a workshop.
Also, since January 2026, I've been a volunteer mentor ("near peer") at workshops for autistic youth who are co-designing a mental health screening tool to address disparities in receiving screenings compared to their non-autistic peers. The way current screeners are designed does not provide a comfortable and understandable way for autistic youth to complete them, resulting in screenings being completed less often and effectively.
In my role as a near peer, I accompany the participants through art, writing, and sound design, providing support along the way and gatheringing research data through their creations and from journals completed at the end of each session.
The MSU Transforming Tools Together (TTT) Lab will incorporate the designs and feedback into the co-designed screening tool. The workshops will be part of an upcoming documentary, so keep an eye out for exciting updates!
Presentations
Presentations
I have recently presented on my work at several conferences, club meetings, and more. The goal of these presentations wasn't just to share my work, but to spur thought and action for others by sharing insights I've learned from my experiences.
Most presentations involved the We Speak! board game. I've presented at the Play Make Learn Conference in August 2025, where I shared insights from co-designing an educational game in Kenya and Tanzania, two settings very different from where I and most other attendees normally work. I'll also present at GamiCon48V in March 2026, a virtual conference with speakers from around the globe, on how to make game-based learning possible in diverse and under-resourced settings.
I also presented on We Speak! at the Michigan State University Spartasoft Game Dev Club and the Diversity in Games Club, discussing the importance of contextual research in game design and how to design games in light of resource and infrastructural limitations. And, I was a panelist on the "Video Games for Learning Japanese" event at the MSU library where I presented on the game alongside professional language game designers in Japan.
I discussed the importance of contextual research in game design at the Spartasoft Game Dev club at MSU in October 2025.
Serious Games 101 at the Diversity in Games Club.
Another presentation I gave at the MSU Diversity in Games Club was a tag team with Victor Liu, where we discussed Serious Games 101. With most undergrad students in the program focused on entertainment games, we provided an intro to serious games, the industry, and MSU's graduate certificate in an effort to build excitement around serious games and get students to consider them as a career or area of study.
Also, although I normally don't present, I've been the lead organizer of the Data Summit (formerly known as the "HMIS Summit") by the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness (MCAH). The virtual event is held annually (since 2019) and we typically see over 300 attendees from multiple states, who come to learn more about current data initiatives and walk away with insights they can use to improve service in their communities. My main role is to work with presenters (internal and external) to help prepare for their sessions, and complete the backend setup in Whova.
The one time I did present at the Data Summit was in 2021, when I partnered up with a colleague to share some tips with attendees in the Help Desk 101 session on how our help desk works and how they can streamline and optimize their requests.
I also went to the Meaningful XR conference in May 2025 at the University of California, Davis and demoed CN Vision alongside my design and research partner, Maura Philippone, to industry professionals in the augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and extended reality (XR) spaces.
In addition to insight provided by other attendees, it was also helpful to get more exposure to a field I was just starting out in and learn from the many other cool projects that were demoed or presented on.
CN Vision was also featured in a research forum in the MSU Department of Media and Information alongside other projects from the Transforming Tools Together (TTT) Lab. Faculty and students were present as we shared an overview of the project and how it is addressing healthcare challenges through the use of novel tools.
We are still working on CN Vision and have submitted it for review at another conference, so we hope to get the chance to build on what we've started!
CN Vision was demoed at Meaningful XR.
Other conferences I attended and enjoyed but didn't present at include the Serious Play Conference (2024), Michigan's Summit on Ending Homelessness (2017-2024), the WellSky Community Services Training Summit (2018-2019, 2022-2024), MCAH's Breakfast of Champions (2018-2019, 2024) and Deque axe-con (2025-2026).
Clubs
Clubs
While I was a grad student at MSU, I was a member of four clubs. I wanted to take advantage of opportunities available to students, so I joined the clubs to learn more about the topics I was studying and get to know other students (especially undergrads, who I otherwise didn't cross paths with much).
The clubs I was in were the UX Association, the Spartasoft Game Dev Club, the Diversity in Games Club, and the Portuguese Club (I was a Portuguese minor as an undergrad!).
The clubs were super helpful and I enjoyed all of the activities and networking. I participated in design sprints and even got the chance to playtest some of my games such as The Braille Bistro.
Another bonus was the industry talks, where (depending on the club) UX designers and researchers and game devs came in to talk to the students. It was again a great networking opportunity in addition to the great learning opportunity to hear their insights and perspectives.
A Diversity in Games Club member playtests the Braille Bistro.
Showcases
Showcases
At the end of each semester at MSU, students, faculty, and guests come together for a showcase in which students show trailers of their games and then we all get to play the games that other students worked on. I attended the showcase for all five semesters I was in grad school, and had a game (sometimes two!) featured in four of them.
Also, in September 2025 the university celebrated its 25th anniversary for the Game Dev program. The celebration kicked off with a showcase on a Friday afternoon, in which alumni from the program now working in the industry came in both to see games students made and share their experience working in the industry.
Additionally, in March 2025 I participated in a showcase for university donors as part of the Uncommon Will, Far Better World campaign. Donors came and checked out selected student projects, including We Speak! and CN Vision, to see the impact of their support.
The showcases were a fun way to meet people, see what other people are working on, and get playtesting feedback for my games!
Alumni and industry professionals came to check out students games like mine at the 25th anniversary showcase.
Going way back to my time as an undergrad, in April 2015 I created a tactile painting that was featured in a one-night pop-up exhibition at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum. The exhibition, "Accessible Art," was a collaboration between painting students and poetry students where I, as a painting student, interpreted a poem and brought it to life to be experienced by blind and vision impaired museum visitors.
The event had a great turnout, and afterwards the paintings (including mine) were shipped off to the United Kingdom where they were part of a traveling exhibition!
A visitor can be seen interacting with my painting at the 0:27 mark of the promotional video.
...and more!
...and more!
There are a few other ways I've been involved. First, while an intern at TechSmith, I shared The Braille Bistro with a group of my colleagues who like to gather to play tabletop games during lunchtime. We had a fun time playing the game and reflecting on the experience!
Also, to get more experience designing games and working with developers, I participated in two game jams at MSU in 2025. I worked with teams to design Amina in America, a visual novel game about a young girl trying to balance her social life and her mental health after immigrating to the US, and NOZAMA, a Tapper-inspired game focused on crunch and burnout. Both games won awards, with Amina in America winning the Best Game at the Diversity in Games Club game jam!
Similarly, in March 2025 I participated in the MSU Designathon, a 24-hour design sprint. I teamed up with two others to design Go Garden!, a board game focused on home gardening and sustainable consumption. Go Garden! also won an award, taking home the prize for best project in the Gamification and Play category!
I worked with two others to create the Go Garden! board game in 24 hours at the 2025 MSU Designathon.
Photo courtesy of Darrian Chen.
Finally, I went to other events just to learn and meet people even when I wasn't facilitating. I went to MSU's InVision Africa event, a celebration of an international photography competition featuring photos that showcase the positive side of Africa.
A Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) I've been working with on We Speak! has also given three presentations on Brazilian culture, and I had a fun time learning more about the country and meeting others with similar interests. I also went to MSU's Global Festival 2025 where I stopped by booths to learn more about countries like Ukraine, Tanzania, and Brazil, and got the chance to practice my Portuguese with some native speakers!
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