I am based in Porto, Portugal.
Before landing in Portugal in 2017, I had a chance to live and work in Russia, Israel, and Malta. ☀️
Thanks to the time spent abroad (& my multilingual family) I speak Russian, English, French, some Hebrew, and Portuguese. 🌍
I fell in love with UX thanks to the New Digital School online career-changing program, which has unfortunately since stopped.
Before plunging head first into UX back in 2020, I did many other things: like getting a university degree in English-Russian Translation and Cross-cultural Communications, volunteering as an English teacher at an underprivileged primary school 👩🏻🏫, grading diamonds in a big international diamond lab 💎🔬 and coordinating a local foodie magazine.
I am a big believer in Ethical design and the importance of UX strategy. ("UX Strategy" by Jamie Levy is my UX Bible)
I follow closely the developments in Responsible and Ethical AI.
Learning is my hobby, so I spend my free time taking courses, reading books, and listening to podcasts (usually about service design, research, and most recently, community management)
I am currently learning about Service Design & Sustainability through an Open University course of Aalto University.
I recently got involved in community building, thanks to the side volunteering projects with Ladies That UX Porto and UXPA Portugal. It came as a pleasant surprise how much in common User Research, Service Design and Community management have.
I’ve been generally off social media for the past year (apart from LinkedIn 😇) - and it has done wonders for my mental health. Highly recommend it!
Speaking of my personality, ISFP personality (aka Adventurer) describes me quite well.