Skip to content

Tag: biography

The Iron Maiden

Published June 16, 2011

Yesterday, I went in for a monthly phlebotomy (ie bloodletting) as ordered by my doctor. You see, I have a genetic condition called Hereditary Hemachromatosis, which was diagnosed in 2008. (It surfaced about 30 years earlier than normal for women). My “treatment” is to go to the blood center and donate blood, sometimes more frequently than is typically allowed without a prescription. Hemachromatosis is essentially the opposite of anemia. Your body absorbs iron too well – which may sound awesome to anemics, but iron can only leave your body in blood, and as it builds up in organs it can…

Continue reading The Iron Maiden

2 Comments

What Comes After Ever After? (Part 2)

Published June 6, 2011

In Part 1, I matriculated to CMU thanks to a presentation by Randy Pausch, but the promise of CS was about to change drastically. By the time my senior year at CMU rolled around, I had completed a successful internship at Pittsburgh area design firm MAYA Design, and they had expressed interest in offering me a full time position. Everything seemed to be coming up roses, and I was happy to plan on staying in Pittsburgh indefinitely. That all changed on September 11, 2001, when the stock market crashed along with those ill-fated planes. MAYA’s financial sector clients vanished, and…

Continue reading What Comes After Ever After? (Part 2)

Comments closed

What Comes After Ever After? (part 1)

Published June 2, 2011

In “Muppets, Technology and Me” part 1 and part 2, I went into my background as a young geek desperately in love with theme parks, computers, and Big Bird, in no particular order. That story was intended as a prologue to this story – my personal story about how I finally realized it wasn’t “normal” to be a woman in technology, how Randy Pausch both inspired me and changed my life directly, and why I’m so passionate about causes like IGNITE now. I was what I call a “walking GPA” in high school. Tied for valedictorian in a graduating class…

Continue reading What Comes After Ever After? (part 1)

1 Comment

Muppets, Technology and Me: Part 2

Published May 24, 2011

…Continued from “Muppets, Technology, and Me: Part 1” I fell permanently down the theme park rabbit hole when I turned 16. Just a few weeks after my birthday, my mother told me about an ad she had seen in the paper for auditions at Sesame Place. Auditions? To perform? I was already desperate to get some kind of job, but that was far beyond the scope of what I had pictured. Still, after years of debate, extemp speaking and acting, it seemed worth the time to audition. I remember being asked to do some things for a video camera, responding…

Continue reading Muppets, Technology and Me: Part 2

1 Comment

Muppets, Technology and Me: Part 1

Published May 21, 2011

On several occasions, I’ve been asked, “How did you get involved in IGNITE? What is your inspiration?” At the recent IxDA Women in Design event it came up – and then, while I was traveling through the Atlanta airport I encountered a reminder in the form of an ad featuring my former professor and mentor, who changed my life and many others. Maybe it’s time to share that story. But to understand what this story means to me, you need to understand a bit more about how I came to be. When I was growing up, I was always a…

Continue reading Muppets, Technology and Me: Part 1

1 Comment