Tori brings a passion for balancing creative design with user needs and expectations to her role as User Experience Practice Manager at Anthro-Tech.

Tori received her Bachelor’s Degrees in Anthropology and Journalism and Mass Communications from The University of Iowa and holds a Master’s Degree in Digital Anthropology from University College London. Her focus in Anthropology led her to a career in UX that started with a UK company called The Big Sofa Project. Tori spent a year interviewing participants on a big blow-up sofa across the UK for a variety of projects with clients ranging from city councils and public utilities to Volkswagen, BP and the London Olympics. Tori returned to the US to work as a Games User Researcher for Big Fish Games. At Big Fish, Tori worked with a small research team while the company transitioned from primarily PC games to mobile games, developing research methods and establishing best practices for mobile game design and testing.

When Tori isn't applying anthropology to design and user research at Anthro-Tech, she might be enjoying hot yoga, painting, kayaking, or finding ways to be creative while spending time with friends and family. That, or she's probably snuggling with her geriatric cat, Sugar, during a Netflix marathon.

Path That Lead You To UX

Right before I moved to London for graduate school I was describing my ideal career to a relative from New Zealand. He listened as I described wanting to understand how people experience the world to help make design changes to anything from a paper form or a website to the physical layout of a room. He happened to be a User Experience Designer and let me know that my dream job existed in the form of User Experience Design and Research. It was revolutionary for me to learn that what I hoped to do with a Masters Degree in Digital Anthropology was in fact an actual job!

Design or User Experience hero

Saul Bass is a design hero of mine.

Favorite artist

Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Salvador Dalí... But if I'm honest, I fall in love with new artists every day.

Favorite place in the world

Sevilla, Spain, particularly wandering around the gardens of the Alcázar in the sun when the orange trees blossom.

Can't live without

Art, Water, and Thai food (with lots of veggies). I might regret not listing sunscreen if this is a desert island scenario...