About

Consulting & Freelance Availability

I’m currently taking on consulting and freelance projects, particularly in scientific UI, modeling and simulation, technical UX, documentation ecosystems, and research tooling.

If you’re working on something in these spaces, I’d be glad to hear from you.

Who I Am

I’m Caitlin — a craftsperson working on scientific and computational tools, from modeling and simulation interfaces to documentation architectures and research platforms. My work combines visual intuition, systems thinking, and careful attention to how people actually think and work.

I’ve always been a designer and a creative problem solver, with roots in analog visual art and a lifelong attraction to the structure behind things — visual, conceptual, or computational.

Interdisciplinary practice excites me – it seems like a way for me to bridge gaps and ‘be the change I want to see in the world.’ Moving between art, engineering, research, and design has given me a way to goof around on many planes.

What I Focus On

I care about designing tools and systems that people can actually think with.

My recent work centers on:

  • scientific UI and computational interfaces
  • modeling and simulation tools
  • documentation and learning environments
  • research platforms and the structure of technical workflows

A dedicated writing space for my modeling and simulation work will live at modelblog.middlecosm.press (coming soon).

I often work in the connective tissue between disciplines — part design, part engineering, part research, part documentation — helping teams shape the parts of systems that no single role fully owns.

Influences

My influences cross art, science, and design.

Some of the currents that shaped me:

  • Bauhaus craft traditions, information design, and analog visual art
  • Artists who treated perception as inquiry — including Paul Klee, Hilma Af Klint, Eva Hesse and so many others whose approaches to structure have inspired me greatly
  • The lineage of computational media and HCI thinkers — Muriel Cooper, Bret Victor, Jesse James Garrett and others who treat interfaces as instruments of thought
  • Paul Feyerabend, Jared Diamond, Jonathan Rausch and Ash Jogalekar for their unwavering stare-downs with the things we call truth … gosh … so many more thinkers from scientific visualization, cognitive psychology, and systems theory

How I Work

I enjoy consuming and synthesizing complex information — making lofty ideas plain, not by oversimplifying them, but by giving them a form people can use.

Because I design and code, I often serve as a liaison between stakeholders, researchers, visual designers, and engineers. I value research, collaborative design, and rapid build–measure–learn cycles. I believe a low-fidelity, functioning prototype usually teaches more than a polished mockup.

My work in the last several years has included interfaces for machine learning systems, scientific modeling platforms, NLP research tools, and large-scale learning and documentation systems.

Background

I began in analog visual art, moved into UX and product design, and eventually found my place in scientific software and computational research.

I’ve completed a full-stack coding certification (MERN stack), built numerous prototypes and interfaces, and worked with world-class teams in a range of technical environments (XP, Agile, Scrum, and hybrid research settings). I’m now in graduate school at Georgia Tech, focusing on modeling & simulation, human-centered computing, and the design of systems for large-scale research and learning.

Speaking, Teaching, & Community

Though introverted, I love sharing pragmatic design skills.

At Allstate, I co-created the Design Hackers Guild, an interdisciplinary community of curious practitioners — a highlight of my time there.

A Few Personal Notes

For fun: My husband and I are slowly restoring our 1918 Chicago frame bungalow and hanging out with our canine children. It’s a grounding counterpoint to my computational life.

You can read more about my:

If you’d like to access password-protected work, just reach out.

```