Shilpa Dhamdhere

shilpa.lagu _at_gmail.com

I have always been passionate, persevering and a perfectionist about the work I do. I am a strong user advocate and believe that the user always comes first. As a UX Designer I build user experiences that delight users. My unique strength is understanding users and their challenges. I collaborate cross-functionally with Product Management, Dev, QE across time-zones to bring out the best from the entire org with a singular goal to build user experiences that users love. I practice and leverage UX methodologies, such as - Persona, User Flowcharts, User Journey, Card Sorting, Heuristic Evaluation and Usability Study extensively in my day-to-day work. I love to think outside-of-the-box and propose innovative solutions for complex problems.

As a UX Manager I lead a team of designers. We build products that customers love and are used at world’s largest refineries and process engineering companies. I remove hurdles for my team so they can achieve their full potential. I’m skilled at mentoring, coaching, optimizing team processes and conflict resolution. I seek opportunities for my team to work on cutting edge products involving AI, Machine Learning and Industry 4.0 technologies. I can effectively balance multiple priorities at the same time.

Experience

Associate UX Manager

AspenTech Corporation

I lead a team of UX designers working on various AspecTech products. I also build delightful user experiences for multiple products. We work in Scrum based agile environment. My focus is on -

Mentoring, coaching my team to increase impact of User Experience team across AspenTech products
Identifying correct UX methods to understand user needs, pain-points.
Extensive collaboration with all stakeholders from - PM, Dev, QE, Documentation.
Work in Figma to create high fidelity mockups.

Due to confidentiality, I am unable to share project details. Contact me for details.

November 2018 - Present

UX Consultant

Upland Software

I have worked in an agile environment for multiple projects ranging from concept to design specs. Significant skills and experience include -

Effective cross-functional team communication.
User Research - methods and execution.
Building different Data Models - Persona, Journey Mapping.
Sketching multiple user interactions with acceptance criteria as an end-goal.
Low and high fidelity mockups using progams such as Sketch, InVision, and Balsamiq.
Multitasking: working on many simultaneous projects.

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May 2017 - July 2018

Principal UX Designer

MyOutPace - Capstone Project

I am a founder of a platform, that has now gone mobile, that provides easy access to important information such as formulas, test questions that are organized by subject, especially when students are on-the-go. We use the "distributed learning" technique, which is a study technique where studying happens in intervals, this helps retain knowledge better than other techniques to acheive a higher success rate for standardized tests. This project also has the capabilities to-

Define project goals, identify users
Do User Research and Analysis - Survey, Diary Studies, and Interviews
Create Personas, Storyboarding, and Concept Sketches
Design Phases and Validation - Low Fidelity, Medium Fidelity, Final MVP

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February 2017 - Present

UX Intern

The Mathworks

I have worked with cross-functional teams to create appealing user interface for Matlab's Core Dumps. This new interface enables users to collect relevant data about reported core dumps, analyze the data, and resolve issues. I am able to-

Lead user experience specialists for the MathWorks SegV project.
Be engaged in different user research methods and translate the data into consumable user workflows.
Organize and moderate multiple user testings as well as affinity mapping to evaluate paper prototyping .
Create low fidelity interactive prototypes using Balsamiq.

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March 2016 - July 2016

Marketing Specialist

Boston Engineering

I have worked on multiple marketing channels to support different departments within the company. I have also-

Revisited original sitemapping to accommodate extensive content. Managed website changes, such as, creating, adding events, videos, white papers etc.
Created multiple advertisments with Google Ads, icons, white papers, pull-up banners and many other marketing material
Worked on core presentation from ideation to the final deliverable which involved team collaboration, storyboarding, sketching, and digital prototyping

February 2014 - November 2015

Education

Brandeis University

Masters Degree

User Centered Design

GPA: 3.8

Innovation and User Centered Design

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Information Architecture

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Data Visualization

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January 2016 - May 2018

Stanford University - Coursera

Human Computer Interaction

Distinction: 91%

March 2011 - May 2011

UMass, Lowell

Certificate in Web Design

GPA: 4.0

Jan 2008 - Aug 2009

Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalaya (India)

Bachelor in Graphic Design

First Class

June 1990 - May 1995

Skills

UX Disciplines

User Research
Usability
Content Strategy
Information Architecture
Interactive Design
Visual Design

Tools

Axure
Balsamiq
Justinmind
Invision
Sketch
HTML
CSS
Bootstrap

Workflow

Mobile-First, Responsive Design
B2B, B2C
Cross Functional Teams
Agile Development & Scrum

Awards

Most Innovative, Technology Summit 2021 - AspenTech Corporation

Every year AspenTech hosts Technology Summit to encourage and promote innovative ideas with the company. 2021 is an anomoly year and AspenTech adopted to these unusual circumstances to successfully host a virtual Tech Summit.

I came up with the idea to leverage current industry 4.0 technology to showcase simulation solutions within the refinery. These proactive messures would help reduce waste and control compounding wastage.

I built a team with 3 designers to brainstorm ideas, collect facts, articulate project goals, create visualization to demonstrate waste management data. Our poster entry won 'The Most Innovative' awards from 40+ entries.
Most Engaging, Technology Summit 2021 - AspenTech Corporation

Eagle Eye project pushed boundaries by tapping into untapped Personas. I built a team and collaborated extensively to understand user pain-points, built proto-personas, journey mapping, and an interactive working prototype.

This project has been socialized within the company and plans to be incorporated in the roadmap.
Q1 2020, CTO Award - AspenTech Corporation
I was the recipent of CTO awards for Aspen Unified product within Manufacturing Supply Chain vertical. I was the lead designer to create new interface for our users and help them complete their work within Unified interface. This award was given for innovation, collaboration, and Execution

Recommendations

James Blackwell, Senior Product Designer - Upland Software

Shilpa Dhamdhere is an incredibly talented, driven User Experience professional. She has a wonderful ability to engage and empathize with users, then translate the information they provide into actionable designs. Whether working on a huge, complex initiative – or a small, intricate feature – she has a unique talent for never losing sight of the bigger picture.

Shilpa worked for my team for more than a year, as she completed her Master’s Degree. In that time she helped build and execute an extensive research plan, collaborating directly with both our customers and our executive team. She also reconstructed our User Personas, and designed product features for our enterprise SaaS application from wireframe to pixel perfect specification.

She is the type of person you look forward to seeing in the office every morning: kind, funny, and humble – yet passionate. Her work ethic and dedication to getting a job done right, enabled our team to deliver work that was very well received in a tight time frame. Shilpa is an absolute pleasure to work with, and I highly recommend her for any role in the field of User Experience.
Capstone Project Presentation Panelist
“Shilpa's project was extremely impressive. She showed great empathy for her customers, which is the single most important thing. She also showed great drive and resourcefulness in bringing this project to life. I am not sure how far she ultimately got with it, but to me this seems not only like a very well thought out and usable product, but also a very viable business as well. If she has a passion for it, I would urge her to continue and to grow it as a business. All in all, a really amazing job! Congratulations, Shilpa.”
Irene Greenberg, Project Manager - THe Mathworks
Shilpa provided UX design services on a project I managed. Upon joining, she immediately became a part of the team, engaging deeply to solve problems. She showed quick initiative by reaching out to our customer base to learn more about how they use the system, documented their workflow in the most creative and effective way I have ever seen, and designed a wireframe solution that she put through usability tests. The improvements she made delighted the user base; equally important for me as a PM in this effort was how easily Shilpa was able to become a part of the team, how well she engaged with the users, how quickly she was able to articulate the workflow roadblocks, and how creatively she solved problems. Shilpa was a delight to work with!
Bill York, GUI Platform Architect - THe Mathworks
Shilpa led our team through a redesign of an internal UI for crash report navigation. She captured with a collection of workflow pictures that captured interesting and humorous details. These were so well received, we referred to them throughout the project as "the scrolls". She is a pleasure to work with and has excellent UI and people skills.