At HackBeanpot, I've always been given the opportunity to channel my creativity in lighthearted and playful ways.

Since high school, I've been drawn to the energy of hackathons—not just for the technical challenges, but for the way they bring people together. They've always been spaces and communities where I could build meaningful friendships with teammates while creating impressive, collaborative projects.

As a Design x Tech member in 2024, I largely contributed to building out wireframes and screens for our mainsite and livesite, from brainstorming the sitemap structure all the way to partner programming with our engineers.

But apart from my mainly UI/UX role, I was able to:

• Design 20+ original graphic design assets to be used across social media, event materials, and more
• Iterate on hacker & organizer merchandise
• Build out pages for the mainsite using Typescript, React, and Tailwind CSS
• Help organize a large-scale event, assisting wherever necessary

As the current Design Lead at HackBeanpot, I lead three subteams within our design organization—Design x Tech, Design x Social Outreach, and Design x Operations—each contributing to the full spectrum of our hackathon experience.

My role focuses on fostering cross-functional collaboration and maintaining momentum across all design initiatives. I develop roadmaps, timelines, and ticketing systems to support streamlined project management, while also leading weekly design meetings, brainstorming sessions, and critiques that drive creativity and alignment. As someone who absolutely loves to plan events, this quickly became something I was passionate about. Ultimately, our team works year-round to build a cohesive design system and produce content that brings the spirit and energy of HackBeanpot to life each year.

As a proactive and thoughtful leader, I prioritize identifying early-stage challenges before they escalate—ensuring our team remains agile, efficient, and energized. I've led efforts to transform our internal workflow, from building an intuitive Figma file system to introducing more opportunities for team bonding.

By reflecting the collaborative and spirited values of HackBeanpot, my work as design lead aims to shape not just our design output, but the culture and vision of the organization as a whole. I truly believe that HackBeanpot's #ForTheKids message rings loud in everything we do, and as someone who frequented overnight and online hackathons since high school, the mission of bringing creativity and fun to a weekend of coding is extremely special to me!