Emily Eagle’06 returns to campus as the college’s newest Executive in Residence, eager to help students explore the theories and practices of foundational human-centered design (HCD) thinking. HCD is a problem-solving approach that puts people at the focus of user-experience (UX) design.

As a skilled facilitator and strategy-focused UX designer, Emily connects the dots between the customer and the behind-the-scenes experience. Most recently a staff product designer for SiriusXM/Pandora who focuses on strategic design work in conjunction with machine learning collaborators, she also led a design team at Nordstrom, a top U.S. luxury retailer. Emily has honed her career with over 10 years of experience in product UX, enterprise tools, information architecture, and service design. “I believe a culture of honesty, trust, and respect can do more for an organization than any technology can do on its own,” Emily says. “Advocacy for users is the most natural and most important part of my work.”

With the launch of her fall course, Topics in Visual Studies: Human-Centered Design Thinking, Emily will delve into aspects of psychology, anthropology, writing, economics, art, data science, and ethics to help students build skills and understanding of key UX methods that designers, researchers, data scientists, and product strategists use to collaborate.

Emily majored in International Relations and minored in Religious Studies at Beloit. Emily says Natalie Gummer’s “Comparative Religious Ethics” course as a first-year student was the best “user experience” class she ever took, even if she had no idea what user experience was at the time. She learned graphic design skills at the Seattle Central Creative Academy, and documentary radio expertise at Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. She’s thankful to Beloit for nurturing her many academic and extra-curricular interests and is excited to explore the interdisciplinary practice of UX design with Beloit students.