ABOUT

I am a hybrid of psychology & design.

MSc industrial/organizational psychology & social psychology

BSc experimental & cognitive psychology

1 yr full-time studies in industrial design in San Francisco, currently studying UX design (part-time & self-paced, online)

I have 5+ years experience from client facing roles as a consultant and researcher, a broad international background and a track record of self-driven learning. I am skilled in gaining trust and creating effective communication between all stakeholders in projects.

Data-informed decisions and actionable insights have always been at the core of my work. My passion lies in human-centered design and I was able to deepen my skills in this area while studying product design in San Francisco as well as through various courses in design thinking and service design. Combined with my background as a psychologist, this gives me a unique foundation to help create great products and services.

Research methods experience:

Experimental design, surveys (design and analysis), field observations, interviews (conducting and analysis), statistical analysis (from descriptive statistics to factor and cluster analysis, hierarchical regressions, longitudinal analyses), contextual inquiry, testing and refining prototypes, and more.

Consulting experience:

Designing and leading workshops in the fields of change, innovation, high performing teams, and conflict resolution, for groups ranging from 4-80 people. Report writing incl. actionable insights and recommendations based on qualitative and quantitative data. Communicating results via reports and presentations.

Design methods and tools experience:

Working with mood boards, personas, journey maps, creating storyboards, sketching by hand, physical prototyping (pretty much any material), creating digital 3D prototypes (in Rhino), renderings in Keyshot.

EDUCATION

MA industrial design—Academy of Art University, San Francisco, USA

Sept 2017 - 2018

MSc industrial/organizational psychology and social psychology—University of Bern, Switzerland

Oct 2007 - Nov 2009

Industrial/organizational psychology, social psychology, advanced statistics

Exchange student—Tischner European University, Cracow, Poland

Sept 2006 - Feb 2007

BSc general psychology—University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Oct 2003 - June 2007

Cognitive psychology, experimental psychology, HCI, clinical psychology & counseling, statistics

CERTIFICATES

Currently enrolled in UX /UI design specialization by CALARTS on Coursera

Design Thinking (DesignThinkers Academy, 2015)

Facilitating Service Design (DesignThinkers Academy, 2015)

Leading for Creativity (online course through IDEO-U)

Yoga & Mindfulness: Over 500 hrs of various teacher trainings

Assessments: Hogan Personality Inventory Hogan Assessment Systems (2014); Team Management Profile TMSDI (2014)

EXPERIENCE

2019 - present: Working as a freelance user researcher and design researcher and enrolled in part-time UX design studies

2017 - 2018: Full-time MA student industrial/product design, Academy of Art University, San Francisco

Jan 2016 - Aug 2017: Sabbatical to study and teach yoga, and to travel and surf

Freelance yoga teacher at Google Norway
Yoga teacher at The Lunar Surf House, Morocco
Travelled to Morocco, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, Iceland, Portugal, Hawai’i, California
Finished several yoga teacher trainings in California and Hawai’i
Finished several human-centered design / design thinking courses in Silicon Valley, Europe and online

April 2014 - Dec 2015: Consultant, talent management and leadership development—Right Management, Oslo

Led highly sensitive user research involving conflict after a merger (incl. creating interview guidelines, conducting the interviews, writing final report with recommendations, moderating group sessions)
Designed the company’s first e-learning & social learning program which was successfully rolled-out in 6 countries.
Introduced design thinking to the company internally as well as to several clients
Designed and led a variety of workshops—for 4 to 80+ people, across Europe
Led 1:1 coachings for employees and managers, across Europe
Took the initiative to do user research internally on use of office space, which led to a redesign of the biggest conference room. This resulted in several new projects and more collaboration between consultants.
Working language: Norwegian and English

March 2013 - March 2014: Freelance career and life coach, Oslo and San Francisco

Private 1:1 coachings on stress management and career change
Finished various trainings in human-centered design, visual storytelling, yoga, mindfulness meditation.

Nov 2010 - Dec 2012: Consultant and researcher—Institute for HR Management, University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland

Projects with clients in manufacturing, transportation, insurance and food industry

I was responsible for research design, survey development and administration, designing and conducting interviews, field observations, qualitative and quantitative data analysis, report writing, leading insights and ideation workshops, presenting the findings to various stakeholder groups incl. recommendations
Led kickoff activities to understand client assumptions about the problem space

In collaboration with the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs:

Research on working conditions in Europe. Worked in an interdisciplinary research team of 5
Responsible for statistical analysis of Europe-wide, longitudinal data and writing reports
Data analysis done with SPSS (primary tool) and Excel
Our insight reports were used as a foundation for changes in the legislation of working time regulations
Co-authored 4 publications

Feb 2010 - Dec 2010: Executive search consultant—The RSA Group, Switzerland

Developed a semi-structured interview guide, interviewed candidates and improved the report template, which was adopted by several consultants internally.