I'm an author and award-winning design leader who's comfortable in ambiguous spaces.

I'm currently the Director of User Experience at Apptronik in Austin, TX, building the user experience practice and human-robot interaction strategy for humanoid robots. It's the kind of work where the rulebook doesn't exist yet, which is exactly the space where I've built my career.

I've been designing for and with AI for over a decade, starting on IBM's Watson team in 2014 where I helped shape the AI's personality and created an interactive avatar to make a still unfamiliar technology feel approachable. That same instinct, making emerging technology feel intuitive, carried through designing gesture and speech-based interaction models for Magic Leap, and now into building Apptronik's UX team from the ground up.

Previously I was Creative Director at argodesign, where I worked with clients including Magic Leap, J&J Medtecg, Salesforce, Northwestern Mutual, and United Rentals.

I'm the author of Prototyping for Designers (O'Reilly, published as Kathryn McElroy), a practical guide to prototyping for both physical and digital products. I'm an international speaker, presenting talks and workshops on design thinking, AI, and prototyping at SXSW, UX Lisbon, O'Reilly Design Conference, MakerCon SF, and others. I teach Storytelling in Design at the University of Texas at Austin (Center for Integrated Design, 2022–present).

I've been recognized as one of Austin's Top 50 Female UX Designers, served on the inaugural Advisory Board for Austin Design Week, and acted as a jury member for the Core77 Design Awards. My work has been featured in Fast Company, Communication Arts Magazine, Time Out New York, Make Magazine, ArtInfo, and the Visual Arts Journal.

Selected clients: Apptronik · University of Texas · Magic Leap · Salesforce · Northwestern Mutual · United Rentals · 3Plus · Robert Half · IBM (Watson AI APIs, Cloud Innovation Lab, Visioneering Team)