Jamila Colon

I started out as a design student at Howard University, and then transferred to the Art Institute of Washington, where I studied website design and interactive media. I finished up my degree at Canisius University in Digital Media Design. While I was in school, I had several jobs - I had my own freelance business where I was doing graphic design and website design for a number of clients, but I also worked in retail and the food industry, and it really rounded out my experience with people and sharpened my skills for empathy. When I graduated, I dove straight into graphic design roles. I worked for a dental lab where I did lots of graphics and websites for them, and I worked for an engineering company. When I decided to go to grad school, I worked for the school that I went to in their student engagement and success department doing graphics for them. I just decided graphics really wasn't enough for me - I wanted to dive a little deeper and do some work that I really felt mattered beyond just pretty graphics. I completed both a full-time and part-time certification program at General Assembly for their UX design. From there, I worked for free for a while - I worked for a couple of startups. I designed a customer portal for a startup called Hectic, I designed an entire interface for a company called Live Affair that was meant to cater to everyone who was sort of missing out on events because of COVID, and I helped launch a company called Soiree where they hired personal chefs to go to people's homes and host dinners and parties. I decided I was tired of working for free and that I had amassed enough experience to dive into the corporate world in a UX role. I was very fortunate and honored to be brought on to the team over at LexisNexis, where I have the amazing opportunity to design software for lawyers and legal workers. I'm doing all of this with an infant in my lap - I got my UX certification after I had just had my first son, Kai, and this past year, I had my second son, Haven.