My design work centers around humanitarian and participatory design and includes social impact games, physical interactions, design advocacy, and web- and print-based information design. Partnerships include: Open Society Foundations, U.N., Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, World Bank, Oxfam America, and Games for Change.

Education:

• MFA in Design and Technology, Parsons The New School for Design
• BBA in Information Technology, minor in Computer Science, The College of William and Mary

Honors & Affiliations:

• Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre Young Scholar (2011-12)
• Open Society Foundations Information Design Fellow (2010)
• Parsons MFA D+T Bootcamp Teaching Fellow, Web Design (2011)
• Parsons PETLab Research Assistant teaching Activate Games curriculum in Abu Dhabi (2011)
• Panelist at State Department's Tech at State's Serious Games conference (2011)
• Presenter at Culture Lab Newcastle's Connected Communities Symposium (2011)
• Beta Gama Sigma, business honor society

My technical skills include:
- Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla CMS
- HTML5, CSS3, XML, PHP, MySQL
- C++ and openFrameworks
- Proce55ing
- Arduino
- GameMaker
- GameSalad
- Adobe CS5: InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop
- MS Office including MS Access
- Banner and Brio (Sungard Higher Education)

Please email me for CV or to hire me.

Humans vs. Mosquitoes was developed in Fall 2011 by a team of graduate students at Yale University and Parsons The New School for Design. Following the interest generated by the Humans vs. Mosquitoes demonstration at COP17, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre has decided to use the game to educate children in developing countries about the effects of climate change on vector-borne diseases. Humans vs. Mosquitoes showcases innovative teaching tools in the field: playing the game allows children and policy makers alike to understand and engage with complex and abstract concepts while learning strategies for disease prevention.

http://humansvsmosquitoes.com

United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) partnered with Parsons to design advocacy tools for the upcoming launch of their biannual Global Assessment Report (GAR 11).

Magnitude is a conference board game where groups of four collaboratively play as a nation to achieve the most progress towards the UN Millennium Development Goals* (MDGs). A nation's investments and MDG progress are at risk of destruction unless disaster risk management (DRM) measures are taken. Magnitude debuted at the GAR 11’s launch in Geneva, Switzerland, in May 2011.

* Nations pledged to achieve the eight Millennium Devleopment Goals by 2015. In September 2010, the world recommitted itself to accelerate progress towards these goals. In Magnitude, it is the players’ collective goal to achieve this same pledge.

Game designed by Lien Tran, Ben Norskov, and Michelle Jackson.
Parsons Humanitarian Design Lab, UNISDR Collaboration Studio, Fall 2010.

Magnitude on the GAR11 website

Stakehold'em was the official Games for Change 8 conference game. Form high scoring hands by networking with other conference attendees. Cards based on roles of a successful serious game design team.

Game designed by Karen Sideman, Oylum Boran, Mohini Dutta, Eulani Labay, Lien Tran and Roussina Valkova.

Sponsored by the Knight Foundation to promote their community-relations game Macon Money.

G4C and Stakehold'em (Gamasutra)

Decoration As Composition serves as an interiors database and resource platform for interior designers. Decorated interiors deserve more critical study, and this site encourages more complex appreciation of decoration in composition.

Responsible for web development and support for Drupal 6 website.

Created website including logo animation for children's storytelling business.

Created using Wordpress, HTML5, CSS3, and jQuery.
Freelance project, June 2011.