About

I am a User Experience Designer living & working in the Philadelphia area. “MEJA” are my initials so there is no correct way to pronounce it. The lion holding a patriarchal cross is a combination of family crests.

With 21 years of experience my focus has been on user centered design while specializing in data visualization. Currently serving as a senior UX designer at Vanguard working on public facing projects helping investors make plans for their futures. Formerly served multiple roles on the Demos & Best Practices team at Qlik architecting & designing demos of the software as well as other projects such as conceptual Qlik user interfaces and experimental data visualizations.

I have worked in the business intelligence industry, e-commerce, and currently work in financial.

UX Writings

In addition to design I also wrote & spoke as an advocate of UX best practices both internally at Qlik as well as externally for their clients & prospects. Some of my UX writing can be found on the Qlik Blog.

General

Outside of UX I have more interests than time.

• In a painful process of learning, that requires zen like patience, I'm an amateur apiarist collecting honey and making mead.

• I run a lot. I had a running streak of running at least 1 mile everyday for 8.5 years.

• Do you know trivial or strange knowledge? I'm all ears. Despite the fact that persuing infinite knowledge with finite time is foolish, I enjoy learning lots of random information.

• Above average whistler

Travels

There is an interview by Ricky Gervais with Larry David where David says that his mother used to tell him "you need a place to go, you have to get out of the house everyday." I think she was on to something. You aren't going to experience the world sitting at home.

I'm gradually working my way around the world to new states, new countries, new wonders, new road-side curiosities. Each new travel adventure gives me new stories, new photographs, new experiences, and an ever-changing way of looking at the world. My goal is to hit all 7 continents and eventually outer space (as soon as space tourism is "cheap"). A map of my travels thus far.

Odd Athenaeum

In my goal to learn more about pretty much everything I have created the Odd Athenaeum. The original Athenæum (athen-E-um) was an ancient Roman school devoted to the study of the arts & sciences.

The Odd Athenæum is a virtual school of curated knowledge focused on the curious, the things slightly off-center, but interesting.

Picks

Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio show where guests choose eight recordings, a book and a luxury item that they would take if they were to be cast away on a desert island. My choices are:

Book

A Confederacy of Dunces


Luxury Item

• a tent