IIT Institute of Design

University of Illinois at Chicago

Far Eastern State University, Vladivostok, Russia

Service Design Lead at Fjord, Accenture Interactive

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Fjord

Service Design Lead

Mentoring, coaching, and empowering the next generation of designers and design leaders.
Offering mentorship in design research, service design, design leadership and career transition.

adplist.org

ADPList Mentor

Teaching graduate level courses in Certificate in Innovation and Design Thinking (CIDT) program.
Teaching curriculum in User Centered Innovation and Immersion and Idea Generation.

CEDIM México

Visiting Professor

INSITUM

Director, Service Design and Strategy

Work with internal partners across the organization to support the design and development of new
product and service experiences.

Current projects include: designing a pilot to test customized health plan approaches for E&I customers, improving benefits enrollment experience for UHC employees, designing a digital assessment tool to assess social needs of community-dwelling beneficiaries in Hawaii with with C&S myConnections team, designing tailored service experiences in healthcare industry

UnitedHealth Group

Associate Director, Human-Centered Design Studio

Research, Analysis and Concept Development: managed planning and delivery of engaging Research Immersion Workshops on several client engagements with a goal to help the client build empathy towards their users. Helped develop high quality insights and idea starters to push client thinking and deliver tangible outcomes.

Led an HCD project for VA: managed delivery of a large qualitative research study and development of quality insights. Drove and coordinated deliverable of research artifacts that highlighted opportunity areas and potential implications for VA and would help VA further adopt HCD methods and approaches. 

Talent Development and Leadership: co-led design capability efforts at Doblin - contributed to the development of design capability group goals, advised on design initiatives to drive progress, facilitated communication and knowledge sharing by organizing design group meetings, drove discussions on how to collectively improve practice.

Led and developed junior members of Doblin team - worked with summer interns on Doblin internal project and coached them in Doblin methodologies, work ethics and focus on performance and impact. 

IP Development: contributed to the development of the Insights Library (IL) – a new Doblin resource tool - as a core member of the internal team. Helped with development and implementation of IL training and informed future development agenda for the IL, including change management initiatives. 
Proposed and worked on developing a new HCD tool – Life Transitions Framework – that maps service touch points to the key moments (and goals) in person’s life, providing context for customer engagement over time.

Doblin

Senior Design Lead

Collaborated with Insitum team on a project for Allstate to conduct consumer research and 
develop design guidelines for multiline proposal tools. 

-  Research and Analysis: conducted multi-phase blind study with Allstate consumers, agents and licensed sales professionals to explore needs and expectations in regards to insurance quoting process and gather feedback on several versions of the proposal tools.
-  Design Guidelines Development: developed a set of guidelines for the new proposal tools to provide inspiration and directional recommendations for future iterations of Allstate’s multiline proposal tools.

Senior Design Researcher and Strategist

Fall, Summer 2014: teaching Interprofessional by Design course at the IIT IPRO Program. 

IIT IPRO program offers an innovative and comprehensive approach to providing students with a real-world project-based experience through integration of interprofessional perspectives in student team environment. The goal of Interprofessional by Design course is to teach students from various disciplines a set of innovation skills - critical thinking, team work and communication - that they can apply to any complex, non-deterministic problems in their educational and professional careers.


Fall, Spring 2014: co-teaching faculty research class on systems design with Professor Jeremy Alexis. 

Provided guidance and critique to the design team and offered feedback on research protocols, analysis of research findings, prototyping and final deliverables.

Adjunct Faculty

Wrigley, November 2013 - August 2014

I bring user-centered design perspective to the development of short and long-term innovation pipelines for major Wrigley brand offerings across global markets.

-  Analysis and Problem Framing: synthesize research findings, create user journeys, generate insights and identify barriers for product/pack innovation, including '5' brand
-  Strategy and Communication: frame product/pack opportunity spaces for Russian and Chinese markets, communicate research findings to Wrigley innovation team and prepare facilitation materials for multiple stakeholder international workshops 


Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, January 2014 - December 2014

Fall 2014 - working with a team at MSK and ID to understand needs of older pediatric patients and develop digital solutions to support those needs.

Spring 2014 - worked with a team at MSK and ID to design and prototype a new wayfinding experience for MSK to make MSK patients feel confident, welcome and at ease.

-  Research and Analysis: conducted on-site observations and ethnographic interviews with MSK staff, patients and visitors, participated in ideation workshops with client team, provided guidance and critique to ID team during all stages of design process


United Way, September 2013 - March 2014

Collaborated with the team of United Way of South-Eastern Michigan to envision the future of early childhood education in Detroit. 

-  Research and Analysis: conducted field observations and stakeholder interviews, developed value webs and activity systems to understand relationships between the stakeholders and identify opportunities
-  Concept Development and Prototyping: developed design concepts and pilot plans to test them, developed road map for pilot implementation

Self-Employed

Design, Research and Innovation Strategy Consultant

Spring 2014: 1st year design studio that raises a question of densifying the city through reducing, re-using and recycling and attempts to re-imagine a typical Chicago alley from solely utilitarian to habitable place. Introducing and exploring the potential of design thinking methodologies in the context of an architectural studio.

Fall 2013: 1st year design studio on the relationship of body, time and the metropolis through a rigorous investigation of fundamental architectural elements, such as surface, threshold, stair and space.

Illinois Institute of Technology, School of Architecture

Adjunct Professor

Graduated with Master of Design Methods Degree in design research and design strategy in December 2013.

Research Assistant, Summer 2013
Developed data sets and executed usability testing of visual analytics software for the analysis of qualitative research data, including strategic planning for contextual information delivery for a large US furniture manufacturer with Associate Professor Stan Ruecker. 

Research Assistant, Summer 2013
Research and writing on the changing roles of designers with Associate Professor Laura Forlano.

The Master of Design Methods (MDM) is a two-year, part-time executive master's degree. This program is for exceptional design, management, engineering, and other professionals who wish to acquire robust design methods and frameworks and apply design thinking to the development of products, communications, services, and systems.

Projects include:
30 Million Words: Early Childhood Education in Detroit for United Way, Southwest Michigan
Kid's Table: Proposal for new type of community food center based in neighborhood school
The Quantified Us: Levers and Barriers to Sharing Personal Data for Social Good
WeCount: Proposal for Aggregation of Participatory Personal Data to Improve Health of Communities
Responsive Environments: New Era of Spatial Design 
Medical Non-Compliance
Stop Obesity: A Systemic Approach to Alleviating Obesity Problem

Master of Design Methods

smdp is an innovative design studio comprised of dedicated design professionals engaged globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues.

Current projects include Xian Han City Lake Entertainment Zone Project in Xian, China
Suzhou Wuzhong Mixed-Use Development, Suzhou, China

smdp

Senior Associate

BuroMOCT is a design and research practice whose ambition is to conceive and develop quality spatial environments for people to inhabit. It looks to critically investigate these environments in architecture, urban design and landscape through research, writing and built work.

Projects include: ‘Smallness’ – a house design catalog, Proposal for Installation for Dance Work Chicago, City Memory Game – urban investigation collaboration, Places and Spaces, 10-minute series – investigation on phenomenology of space, Chicago Street Study – proposal for infrastructure improvement, Chicago, IL. 

Publications include: BuroMoct 01 – Identity I Winter 2010, BuroMoct 02 – Memory I Winter 2011

BURO MOCT

partner/architect

DeStefano Partners is a global architecture, design and planning practice.

Developed design strategy, led design and multidisciplinary teams through project development and execution of institutional, residential, interior, mixed-use and urban planning projects; developed and led office initiatives on case study and material research, led independent research on prototypical design methods and collective housing typology.

Projects Include: Suzhou Wuzhong North Road Mixed-use Development in Suzhou, China. Peace Corner Youth Center in Chicago, IL. DeStefano Partners Office, New Office Space Design in Chicago, IL. Seoul City Hall Competition in Seoul, South Korea. The St. Clair at City Front Plaza, Residential Condominium in Chicago, IL. Pebble City, Mixed-use transit oriented development in Paju, South Korea, Design Proposal  for John Marshall Law School in Chicago, IL

DeStefano and Partners

associate

Produced design and presentation drawings for Perth Amboy High School Design Competition (John Ronan Architect – winning design), developed pre-cast concrete housing prototypes.

Projects include: Perth Amboy High School Design Competition (Winning Design), Perth Amboy, New Jersey

John Ronan Architects

architectural intern

Provided Japanese-Russian-English translation services for multiple Japanese and Russian governmental and institutional clients.

Translated business documentation, seminar and international workshop materials, catalogs and technical documentation, documentaries and festival movies; interpreted at regional conferences and international exhibitions

Masha Safina