I was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Boulder, Colorado when I was four. During high school, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. This struggle led me to find solace in games, motivating me to create experiences offering escape and comfort. I started by making mods for games like Stellar Frontier, Counter-Strike, and Morrowind, before beginning to develop video games with friends and learning to cocreate together on our shared passions.

While in high school, I joined the Boulder Open Space Junior Rangers program where I enjoyed the opportunity to work outdoors and improve the city and trails I loved. After graduating, I attended Colorado State University in Fort Collins, pursuing a degree in Applied Computing Technology.

In the summer of my freshman year at CSU, I interned at Colorado Research Associates, working on atmospheric modeling in Fortran. This internship provided valuable hands-on experience and solidified my interest in applied computing.

At CSU, I took on the role of team lead and CRM application developer at the College of Business. This position taught me to understand complex systems and work across many departments within organizations. Concurrently, I spent weekends developing Electropy with my high school friends. We released Electropy in 2007, officially founding Team Phobic.

In 2008, I left CSU and returned to Boulder where I joined CRMCulture as a CRM consultant. Simultaneously, I continued game development part-time with Team Phobic. Our first success was iTD, released right after the App Store launched, making us early pioneers in mobile gaming. However, it was our next game, Bounce On, that truly took off, achieving over 10 million downloads. With its success, in 2009 I joined Team Phobic full-time. We continued with titles like Bounce On 2, Micro Mayhem, GravBot, and Tunnel Shoot. In 2011, we collaborated with Backflip Studios to develop DragonVale, a major hit that quickly climbed the App Store charts and maintained its position as the #1 grossing app for a considerable time.

While dedicating most of my time to creating games with Backflip, other Team Phobic members worked on Glare. Unfortunately, Glare was not the success we had hoped for, and I found it challenging to balance developing games with Backflip and running Team Phobic simultaneously. Shortly after releasing Glare, we shut down Team Phobic in 2014, and much of the team moved on to join Backflip Studios. In 2015, I was honored to be included in Forbes 30 Under 30 for Games, recognizing my contributions to the industry and my work on DragonVale. At Backflip Studios, I was given the role of Game Director for DragonVale World. It was an incredible experience to be a part of a such talented and large team and I am forever grateful for the opportunity to learn from Hasbro, who had purchased Backflip Studios in 2013.

After leaving Backflip Studios, I spent several months traveling through Europe, which allowed me to see the world and take a well-deserved break after years of hard work.

Following my travels, I moved to Seattle and joined Leaftail Labs as Design Lead on Nibblity, an augmented reality pet simulator for iOS. Developing an AR game was particularly difficult as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the location-based features that were central to the gameplay. Additionally, living in a new city added hardships and struggles with mental health that I began working to overcome. Most recently, I served as Game Design Director at Global Outlier Games where I worked on Taco: Hamster Hero alongside researching the use of artificial intelligence for game development.

Managing Crohn’s disease throughout my life and career is an ongoing challenge, but it has also taught me the value of compassion and empathy. It continues to drive my focus on creating experiences that bring delight and joy to millions.