My Journey
My love of games began early, during the nights my Dad would bring them home from the firehouse for us to play together. These moments became our way of connecting and imagining worlds after long shifts. After he became a 9/11 first responder, gaming became difficult for him, so I began playing on my own. What started as a shared pastime soon became a personal passion that shaped my creativity and the direction of my life.
My passion for creating worlds grew as I immersed myself in titles like Tomb Raider III, Legend of Legaia, and The Legend of Zelda. These games were rich with mystery and atmosphere, and their stories felt alive to me. They were not just things I played; they were worlds I wanted to explore, understand, and eventually learn how to create.
These early experiences sparked my love of art, storytelling, and worldbuilding. I began sketching characters, imagining environments, and writing stories inspired by the emotions these games evoked. As I entered my young adult years, this creative pull grew stronger, encouraging me to take both art and writing more seriously. My artwork was featured in All-County Art exhibitions, I attended specialized art programs, and I had a poem published by Molloy College in eighth grade. These moments helped solidify my connection to narrative craft and emotional design.
In college, I pushed my learning further by taking graduate-level game design and development courses as a sophomore. I wanted to understand the systems and philosophies behind interactive experiences, especially how player empathy can be created and fostered through gameplay. I drew on my creative writing background to explore how narrative, character, and emotional pacing could shape the player’s experience inside a game. I was invited by the department to stay on for the graduate program, which allowed me to deepen my involvement and contribute more meaningfully to the community that shaped me.
While I was pursuing my master’s degree, I served as both a Teaching Assistant and a Graduate Assistant, teaching undergraduates, supporting collaborative project teams, and helping strengthen the program that laid the foundation for my creativity. I also taught gifted high school students through my college’s Summer Honors Institute, where I introduced them to game design principles and guided them through their first interactive projects. These experiences helped me develop a strong teaching voice and a deep appreciation for mentorship.
During my first year of graduate school, I joined Arkadium as a Game Design Intern, where I worked on the Daily Flight mode for Imago. I designed and iterated on more than 200 levels, created custom mechanics, balanced challenge curves, and helped refine the game’s progression flow. During this time, Imago was nominated for Playcrafting’s Game of the Year and featured on the iTunes App Store. This gave me early experience contributing to a project with industry visibility and a broad player reach.
Throughout graduate school, I also had the opportunity to present games at PAX East and IndieCade East. Demonstrating games to players and gathering feedback taught me how to communicate design intent clearly and iterate quickly, especially in high-energy public settings.
In my final year, I created my thesis game, Brave the Lonely, which focused on player empathy and the emotional connections players form with characters. The game explored how mechanics, pacing, and player agency shape emotional response. It was selected as an NYU Incubator finalist, and although I could not advance further due to graduation timing constraints, the committee shared that my game would have been their first choice. The experience affirmed my interest in emotionally driven design and helped guide the next steps in my creative direction.
When I graduated with my master’s degree, I became the first student ever to receive the Excellence in Digital Game Design and Development Award for Distinguished Students, the highest honor granted by the program. This recognition reinforced the direction of my work and my dedication to thoughtful, emotionally resonant design.
After graduating, I continued working in the NYC indie scene, creating small games, experimenting with Unity, and developing my design voice. During this time, I became a founding member of GUMBO (Games Underneath the Manhattan Brooklyn Overpass), a grassroots collective of developers working on independent game projects across New York City.
As part of GUMBO, I contributed as both a designer and developer. I also served as a playtester for other members’ prototypes, including early VR experiences, experimental mechanics, and emerging technologies. This gave me hands-on exposure to different design approaches and strengthened my instincts for usability, iteration, and collaboration.
Within the collective, I worked with ComputerLunch and Simple Machine on Mama Hawk, a mobile adventure game about a hawk mother feeding her chicks. Initially, I joined to help with level design, but later transitioned into a contract Game Designer and Developer. My responsibilities included world design, AI programming, mechanics tuning, production tasks, and content creation. Many of my levels, worlds, and assets shipped in the final version of the game. Mama Hawk was later featured on the App Store and presented at PlayNYC, where our team had the opportunity to share it with a broader audience.
Around this time, I also contributed to Zarvot, a stylish, fast-paced action shooter developed by Sam Eng for the Nintendo Switch. I assisted with level design, shaping combat arenas, pacing, and gameplay flow. Working on Zarvot gave me first-hand experience with console development, including exposure to Nintendo Switch development kits and the technical considerations involved in building for dedicated hardware.
Around this same time, I collaborated with Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga on his interactive art project Incertidumbre, which highlighted the stories of Brooklyn residents affected by gentrification and displacement. For this project, I taught myself how to develop for Google Daydream and created my first VR game. I designed an immersive environment that allowed players to interact with personal narratives. We later presented the work publicly at Union Square, inviting the community to explore it. Ricardo also introduced me to a contact at Rockstar, which helped shape the next chapter of my career.
How I Transitioned Into Product Management
Before moving into Product Management, my journey at Rockstar began when I joined the Online Services team as a Dev Assistant. The work focused on platform systems rather than traditional game design, but it offered a valuable look into an area of development I wanted to understand more deeply. I became interested in how large-scale online ecosystems are designed, maintained, and supported. With GTA Online thriving for more than a decade, I was eager to learn how such a massive live environment functioned.
This curiosity, combined with my design background and communication skills, eventually led to a new opportunity. Shortly after the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, I was invited to join Rockstar’s newly forming Product Management team as one of its founding members. I helped establish the discipline within the studio and supported initiatives across Customer Support, Social and Competition, Web, and Internal Tooling. This gave me a holistic understanding of how different parts of the online ecosystem work together to support both our titles and our players.
This transition allowed me to combine my game design foundation with a broader systems perspective, which shaped the hybrid designer and product manager identity I have today.
Rockstar Games
At Rockstar, I have contributed to major titles including Grand Theft Auto V, Grand Theft Auto Online, Red Dead Redemption 2, Red Dead Online, and Grand Theft Auto VI. I also supported the launch of the Rockstar Games Launcher. My work supports development across multiple large-scale projects, where I collaborate closely with cross-disciplinary teams to serve a wide range of stakeholders.
I also regularly work with studio leadership to clarify goals, align priorities, and drive initiatives forward. These experiences strengthened my ability to communicate across all levels of a studio, coordinate complex efforts, and contribute meaningfully to decisions affecting projects of significant scope.
My Skill Set
Across my career, I have built a multidisciplinary skill set that includes:
Game design thinking and worldbuilding
UX and systems design
Product strategy and problem framing
Cross-disciplinary collaboration
Writing, communication, and documentation
I love working at the intersection of creativity and problem-solving. Whether I am shaping workflows for development teams, designing gameplay loops, or contributing to experiences that extend a game’s universe, I am always driven by curiosity, clarity, and player-centered thinking.
Today, I am continuing to grow as both a product leader and a designer. I am reconnecting with personal game projects and exploring new opportunities within game development. I remain committed to building experiences that support both players and the people who create the games we love.