ABOUT US

• She was born a lefty, but was taught to become a righty.
• Her elementary-school classmates nicknamed her “the fastest pencil in the East.”
• Her first big gig was in high school, painting the cover of an AC/DC album on the back of a jean jacket for twenty bucks.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the peak of her career. Since then she’s gone on to work with clients such as the Smithsonian Institution, National Library of Medicine, and Johns Hopkins, and she’s picked up plenty of bling along the way. Notably, she’s been recognized by industry leaders like Communication Arts and Fast Company. At the helm of Link Studio, she directed, designed, and coordinated projects for more than two decades. The coolest thing about Aline’s approach is that she views everything through a unique lens: she has an undergraduate degree in psychology and a master’s in medical and biological illustration. Combined with her design experience, she views every design project from a user’s eyes, and, if we’re honest, sometimes we think she can even read the user’s mind. It’s a little creepy but it makes her good at her job.

While she’s pretty darn good at running Astriata, she loves bringing all different aspects of design together–from brand strategy, identity systems, print design, digital marketing, and website design to usability testing on our proprietary platform, UserHappy®.

Aline enjoys keeping up with her two sons and traveling with them and her husband. She buys her furniture on eBay because she’s always on a quest for mid-century furniture and collectibles. Before long, she’s going to be on a quest for a mid-century house to match all her furniture! She relaxes by traveling, cooking, watching movies, and wishing she had a greener thumb. If you can’t find her, Aline has probably snuck off for a catnap, because we’re not quite sure when she actually sleeps.

As our Director of Technology, Alex is usually behind the scenes. But there’s more to this guy than meets the eye:

• He once scored a goal on the Polish national team goalkeeper in a soccer tournament.
• On a recent move, he found 80 boxed board games in his closet.
• He’s so competitive with his older brother that he learns a new programming language every year just to keep ahead of him. (His last “win” was .NET’s F# while his brother was still trying to master Japanese.)

Astriata is fortunate that Alex’s brother unwittingly keeps us at the very forefront of technology. With more than 12 years of experience in software engineering, application development, and web technologies, Alex is skilled at requirements gathering, architecting systems, developing application frameworks, and leading projects through all phases of development. His specific technical skills are impressive: he has extensive knowledge of VB.NET, ASP.NET, C#, Classic ASP, PHP, C / C++, Visual Basic 6.0, Java(j2ee), LabVIEW, PC Assembly, Assembly and C for microcontrollers, MATLAB, MathCAD, ModelSim, and XILINX.

Before Alex brought his brains to Astriata, he was a software engineer with Transistor Devices Inc., a developer of high-technology power conversion products. It’s no surprise that he spends his free time role-playing in online games, playing board games with his brother and his wife and friends, and playing soccer. It is a little bit of a surprise that another of his hobbies is writing short stories. We do publish blogs on this site, so you never know...

With a knack for strategy, Ken is our biz dev guru, always on the prowl for partnerships or opportunities to bolster our clients’ (or our own) spheres of work and interests. You might not know that Ken is also:

• An avid scuba diver, with 50-plus years of diving experience
• A passionate traveler who loves to immerse himself in other cultures (and plans to retire in Thailand)
• An adrenaline junkie who relishes outdoor adventures of all kinds
• A daily practitioner of mindfulness and meditation

Ken most recently served as the director of marketing and membership for the American Craft Spirits Association, where he launched a number of initiatives that elevated the organization’s brand and positioned it for long-term growth and sustainability. Before that, he worked as the chief marketing officer for the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce (in South Carolina), where he oversaw marketing and communications strategies. In addition, among other roles, he served as the managing director of product and service delivery for the American Industrial Hygiene Association (in Falls Church, Virginia) and as vice president of marketing and strategic business development at the American Academy of Physician Assistants

At Astriata, Ken enjoys the creative energy of his colleagues at Astriata and the opportunity to apply his business acumen to help clients across a range of associations and organizations prosper and grow.

If you’ve met Jodi, you know she’s got a great laugh. But did you also know…

• Her house is the headquarters for all things social, whether it’s a million college kids watching a game or her favorite cocktail-hour friends coming over to gossip.
• Her secret vice is watching hours of true-crime television, and if you ask her nicely, she’ll tell you what really happened to JonBenét.
• Lake Huron is her home away from home and she spends every summer as an honorary Canadian, eh?

But on to her skills as a project manager…ask any client, and they’ll tell you Jodi is a superstar. She makes it her mission to make every project successful, and she works diligently to make sure we are serving our clients the very best we can. As a PM, she streamlines processes, tracks progress, manages resources, stays within budget, and delivers results on time.

Because she’s raised three children, Jodi can multitask like a boss. She’s helped by the odd obsession she has with yellow sticky notes, which line her computer, desk, and office with a seemingly insurmountable list of “to dos.” However, hats off to her, because it works and she is not one to miss a deadline or drop a ball.

Though her children are almost all out of college, there’s a new baby in Jodi’s house. But don’t worry: she has four legs and she’s furry. Her name is Millie, and Jodi’s spare time is spent taking care of this puppy. Once she wears Millie out, Jodi can be found traveling as far as California to deliver in-person hugs to any of her children. She loves to hang out with her husband and her friends, and she relaxes by taking long walks (and then getting back to her favorite TV shows).

Tanya is our senior project manager, and her favorite part of her job is assembling a team that works well together, like the Avengers but with technical super-talents. But you should also know:

• Tanya has two dogs named Kinsi and Kadi, and two horses named Phoenix and Christofer.
• Of all her international travels, Paris is her favorite city in the world.
• Tanya is an avid knitter, and she particularly enjoys intricate lace knitting.

Tanya was born in Michigan, and attended high school and college in Michigan. But in between, her family lived in a number of states and spent five years in Germany. She moved out west after college, and now Tanya lives in Colorado with a stunning view of Pikes Peak.

Tanya studied computer science in college, then started her career as a software developer. She has been a technical project manager for more than 20 years now, with experience in the healthcare, aerospace, and telecommunications industries, plus specialized work involving artificial intelligence.

As the liaison between the technical team and the client, Tanya keeps everybody laser-focused on the same goal. Naturally, her biggest pet peeve is lateness.

Michael is our accomplished senior full-stack developer and software engineer, meaning he can develop and design both the front- and backend of a website or application. Oh, and if you didn’t guess it already, he thrives on challenges and spends his spare time:

• working on a light fantasy book series (as an aspiring novelist, he possesses wizardry not only with coding but also with words)
• battling it out in the online gaming world (he’s no noob)
• perusing a work of anime (he’s an avid fan)

Michael comes to Astriata with a background in computer science and graphic and visual design from Polytechnic University (present-day New York University). A born-and-raised New Yorker, he left his hometown to work as a graphics and web designer, and later an Adobe Flash developer, for Hodgson Consulting in Maryland. Later, he worked for the Association for Intelligent Information Management (AIIM), before returning to his hometown to work as a consultant for various companies and organizations.

With extensive experience and exceptional skills in .NET, Michael is an asset to Astriata’s team, consistently delivering innovative solutions that make our clients’ lives easier. He’s also a family guy who values work-life balance and does his best to limit his screen time—and set a good example for his kids.

Scott is our resident Renaissance man. The guy knows his way around our design department but he’s also got a skill that has landed him in the White House and Carnegie Hall….multiple times! Let’s start with some of the lesser-known facts about him:

• His first job was serving Rooty Tooty Fresh ’N Fruitys in the smoking section at IHOP…back when smoking sections were a thing.
• Scott fully registered to run a Spartan Race, received the t-shirt in the mail, backed out of the race, and still wears the t-shirt with pride.
• He’s diametrically opposed to all sauces and condiments. He insists, “I like my food as dry as my personality.” Ba dum bum.

Scott was born and raised in Madrid, Spain, and has lived in the U.S. since he was in third grade. He began studying art in fifth grade, under the tutelage of his grandfather (a professional artist). He says he was a complete computer nerd in high school, and he learned to combine his love for art and computers in the field of graphic design. He has worked professionally as a designer, illustrator, and front-end developer since 2006, creating visuals for numerous businesses, universities, non-profits, and feature-length films. He remains a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Mobile, where he has taught web design, technology, and music classes since 2017.

His somewhat lofty and eclectic life goals include becoming a published author, winning a Grammy for album art, and going an entire meal without spilling something on himself. Hobbies include reading, roasting coffee, hiking, and endlessly scrolling Wikipedia. He’s passionate about adoption and advocating on behalf of birth families, adoptive families, and adoptees (and, editorial note, you should meet his adorable daughter). He’s a classically trained opera singer and has performed four concerts at Carnegie Hall and five concerts at the White House. He tells us that “spending time with my wife and daughter brings me greater joy than anything in the world. Although, the Oxford comma is a close second.”

Nothing excites Gillian more than creating intuitive user experiences and designs that people can easily access and navigate. What you may not know about the London native is that she:

• Relishes not only graphic design but also traditional arts like printmaking, sculpting, and pottery
• Yearns for the outdoors and loves to traipse through tropical rainforests, hike mountains, and kayak rivers
• Stalks Instagram foodie accounts to find her next favorite meal

Before moving to the United States and joining Astriata, Gillian's passion for learning about life and cultures worldwide took her to multiple countries—Colombia, Taiwan, Peru, and Honduras—where she taught English in schools and developed and operated her own business teaching English in a virtual environment. She also earned a bachelor’s degree in graphic arts from the University of East London and took courses in user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design at CareerFoundry, where she discovered the enormous potential of using design to empower individual users.

At Astriata, Gillian spends the bulk of her time planning, conducting, and analyzing user research—and then translating what she learns into user personas, user flows, information architecture, and wireframes. She utilizes UX research methods and empathy to identify user pain points and UI design concepts to create human-centered products and prototypes, tailored to each client’s unique needs. “I’m excited to collaborate with creative minds and design content that is made accessible for everyone,” she says.

Haymon crosses our Ts and dots our Is, while keeping our team on a timetable to stay on track with tasks and deadlines or making sure that design is implemented faithfully. What you may not know about her, however, is that:

• She bakes a mean Portuguese egg tart and crepe cake (with layer upon layer of whipped cream).
• With the goal of someday finishing a marathon, she can run like the wind.
• She plays an instrument from each musical family (as a refresher, that includes woodwind, brass, keyboard, percussion, strings, and even a subgroup of strings: chordophones).

While a student in philosophy and computer science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Haymon served as Astriata’s administrative assistant. Since graduating, Haymon is putting her programming skills to work as a developer. She was born and raised in North Carolina but has lived in Australia, New York, and Colorado, and loves discovering tucked-away, intimate spaces and neighborhoods in places of all sizes.

Haymon considers herself a small-town person at heart and enjoys the close-knit community and collaboration of Astriata. With a love of both numbers and words (and STEM and the humanities), she enjoys the chance to work with a creative agency that takes a science- and research-based approach to marketing, design, web development, and usability.

Natalia’s our multi-talented content input specialist who has a knack for nuance and detail. But beyond the behind-the-scenes work she does with client databases:

• She previously worked as a medical assistant in a neurology practice and is your go-to gal for all blood-drawing needs!
• Cooking is her favorite hobby; beef onion croquette is her specialty.
• Natalia’s quite the night owl, but you’d never know because she’s always on her toes!

Natalia's early years were marked by a sense of adventure and a love of new experiences. Born in Rhode Island, she spent her childhood in different countries and states, including Cameroon, Indonesia, Florida, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. Eventually, she returned to her roots in Maryland, where she made her home once again with her furry feline companion, Jezebel (named after her favorite Iron & Wine song).

As a medical assistant at a neurology clinic, Natalia honed her detail-oriented, problem-solving, and composure skills. However, ever since childhood, Natalia had always been an avid artist, experimenting with different materials and colors on paper. Eventually, her passion for design and technology led her to pursue a career in the digital realm by studying these areas at Anne Arundel Community College and the Flatiron School. She believes design and technology drive innovation—and loves working at the intersection of both.

Natalia's diverse experiences and passion for design and technology make her a valuable member of Astriata's team, where she manages client databases with precision and care. Outside of work, Natalia enjoys whipping up culinary masterpieces, blending family recipes with her own unique creations—from elaborate fusion pastas to various seafood dishes. Other hobbies include tending to her thriving herb garden, reading and writing insightful articles on Medium, and, most importantly, lavishing love on Jezebel.