Events and appearances

Previously the organiser of IxDA Melbourne, I have enjoyed being a part of the community of human-centered designers in Melbourne. I'm focused on breaking down barriers between design disciplines and having big conversations about the kind of things that designers should be thinking about, not just pixels and palettes.

I've inspired girls and women by investing my time into events, workshops, hackathons and mentorships with Code Like a Girl. I'm proud of a research project I did with them, investigating through a series of depth interviews the experience of secondary school teachers attempting to teach tech skills through the Victorian Digitech Curriculum. I developed their HTML/CSS class offering and have taught both children and adults, including a series of workshops at the Microsoft Store in Sydney.

I've volunteered my time to causes I care about with Girls In Tech, Girl Geek Academy, Girl Geek Dinners, Ladies that UX and other organisations trying to increase diversity in the technology industry. I particularly care about visibility and representation for technical roles for women and non-binary people as well as pay equity.

I've taught more classes than I can count at General Assembly and Academy Xi. I developed and delivered successful classes around Agile/Scrum, UX fundamentals and HTML/CSS basics. I have consistently received high ratings on my teaching style and content.

Published work

Videos of talks I've done (playlist)

Published writing

• The classic philosophical theory that nails why 2016 sucked so much at Quartz
• Gudetama the lazy egg is the Hello Kitty of Japan’s millennial generation at Quartz
• A practical guide for learning meditation through the art of gaming at Quartz
• Author archive at Junkee
• Contributing author in Through The Clock's Workings (Sydney University Press 2009)

People mentioning me

• Recording of my talk about going Rogue at Design Ops Melbourne
• Laura Summers with Design Ops Melbourne says nice things about me
• 5 surprising lessons we learned at PauseFest 2018 at BlueChilli's blog
• Designing delightful experiences with our UX Lead, Amelia interview at Equiem's blog
• Apply Design Thinking to Problem Solve Your Life interview at Agency Iceberg's blog

Audio

• Ep 6. How to ask questions like a multifunctional designer feat. Milly Schmidt on Better Questions, Better Life podcast
• Part 1 and Part 2 of an interview with Laura Summers on the True North podcast
• What is Design Thinking? And how can you apply it right away! at Customer Experience Leaders podcast
• 2SER: interview about Girls in Tech launching in Australia