Hello, I'm Mai.
Experience Strategy, Service Design + Human Insights Leader
I've always been curious by the gap between what people say, what they do, and what they need.
For more than 15 years, I've explored how motivation, human behavior, and lived experience shape the way people interact with products, services, environments, and systems. My work helps organizations make sense of those experiences and translate them into meaningful action.
Sectors Served
Healthcare & Life Sciences
Johnson & Johnson • Pfizer
Johnson & Johnson • Pfizer
Technology & Accessibility
Google • Capital One
Google • Capital One
Public Services
NYC Service Design Studio • Pittsburgh International Airport
NYC Service Design Studio • Pittsburgh International Airport
Financial Services
Capital One
Capital One
Hospitality & Guest Experience
Baha Mar • St. Regis
Baha Mar • St. Regis
Workplace & Built Environment
Google • Pfizer • Capital One • WeWork
_______Google • Pfizer • Capital One • WeWork
I approach research as a tool for listening, sense-making, and imagining better futures with people. Whether the challenge involves a digital product, a healthcare service, a workplace, or a public system, I'm interested in understanding how individual experiences connect to the larger systems around them. Over the past 15+ years, I’ve worked across healthcare, technology, public sector, and workplace innovation with organizations including Google, Johnson & Johnson, and NYC Service Design Studio.
I create participatory research experiences that surface the behaviors, tensions, and lived realities that often remain invisible in traditional research processes. Through co-design, cultural probes, and collaborative sense-making, I help teams uncover opportunities that lead to more human-centered products, spaces, services, and systems.
Because my foundation is in design, I naturally bridge research and implementation, helping teams move from insight into tangible direction, early concepts, strategic alignment, and real-world change.
Alongside consulting, I’ve taught and mentored graduate and undergraduate students at Parsons and the School of Visual Arts in NYC supporting emerging designers and researchers as they develop their own approaches to systems thinking and human-centered design.
I’m especially interested in how we design for humanity in an increasingly AI- mediated world.
Area of Focus
My Approach
Over the years, I've learned that design isn’t just about solving problems. It’s about observing carefully, actively listening, and creating the conditions for meaningful change.
Over the years, I've learned that design isn’t just about solving problems. It’s about observing carefully, actively listening, and creating the conditions for meaningful change.
These principles shape how I approach research, strategy, and experience design:
+ Amplify what’s already working. People are constantly adapting systems in creative ways, especially when existing systems fail to meet their needs. I pay close attention to the workarounds, behaviors, and informal practices that emerge in everyday life. These signals often reveal resilience, ingenuity, and some of the strongest opportunities for meaningful innovation and change.
+ Use design to ask better questions. Design is not only a way to solve problems, but a way to uncover them. Through design-led probes, co-design, participatory engagements and speculative prompts, I surface insights that traditional research methods often miss.
+ Align around a shared vision. When teams aren’t aligned, even strong ideas struggle to move forward. I use storytelling, journey envisioning, and future-oriented visual frameworks to help people see what’s possible and commit to it together.
+ Co-design with, not for. The people closest to a challenge often hold the deepest expertise. I believe meaningful change happens through shared authorship, trust, and participation — not top-down solutions. Building trust sometimes means reducing power distance and creating space for honesty, reflection, and mutual understanding, especially in emotionally complex environments.
+ Build frameworks that enable action. Research should do more than generate insight. I create frameworks, tools, and scaffolds that help teams continue learning, adapting, and shaping experiences long after a project ends.