If you are interested in having a mentor, please review the list below and contact one or more mentors whose interests and experiences match what you are looking for. Please note that mentor profiles that have been greyed out are people who have requested not to be contacted at this time.
If you are unsure of what you're looking for or who you should contact, or are uncomfortable contacting prospective mentors directly, email Noreen Whysel, Mentoring Coordinator, and she will help pair you up with an appropriate mentor.
If you would like to be a mentor, email Noreen Whysel, Mentoring Coordinator, to be added to the list of available mentors.
Dan Brown
Lorelei Brown
Christian Crumlish
Liz Danzico
Clifton Evans
Chris Farnum
Nick Finck
Laurie Gray
Keith Instone
Livia Labate
Donna Maurer
Harry Max
Peter Merholz
Anders Ramsay
Elizabeth Randolph
Mark Resnick
Sarah Rice
Dan Saffer
Rachel Switzky
Todd Warfel
- Dan Brown
- User Experience Lead for Computech, Inc, a contractor for the FCC (Bethesda, Maryland)
- 10 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include deliverables, management, government, commerce, methodology, and user research
- "I like knowing I'm helping to build the profession."
- Looking to mentor anyone interested in deliverables -- as well as beginners, people transitioning to IA from another field, and people working in government -- for projects or career planning.
- Website: www.greenonions.com
- Contact: brownorama AT gmail.com
- Lorelei Brown
- Manager, User Experience at the National Association of Realtors (Arlington, Virginia)
- 8 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include business/management, info design, navigation, search, e-commerce, content management, prototyping, and working with non-profits.
- "I'd like to get a difference perspective on IA/UX, which often comes from answering other people's questions."
- Looking to mentor anyone with similar experience and interests, and also those new to IA and anyone with career questions.
- Contact: lorelei AT loreleisays.com
- Christian Crumlish
- Senior Information Architect and Web Strategist for Extractable Solutions, LLC (San Mateo, California)
- 11 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include requirements gathering, deliverables, client-facing consulting, project leadership; nonprofits, e-commerce, financial, community sites; content strategy, knowledge management, information design, nomenclature, taxonomies, navigation, search.
- "I enjoy teaching, training, giving advice; I learn from people when I help them learn new things; my chops get stronger when I'm forced to explain things; I want there to be more mentoring available; I don't know enough good IAs as it is and would love to be able to recommend people when I get inquiries for work I can't handle."
- Looking to mentor anyone interested in taking a broad view of information architecture and user experience issues, including addressing technological factors and business logic.
- Website: x-pollen.com
- Contact: xian AT well.com
- Liz Danzico
- Director, Experience Strategy, AIGA (New York, New York)
- Nine years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include information architecture, content
strategy, interaction design, managing teams, user research, and
technical writing.
- I'm interested in mentoring because everything I learned, I learned
from my mentors.
- I'd make a good mentor for you if you're curious about design and
writing for ecommerce, nonprofits, large-scale content sites, or if
you find yourself re-organizing your spice rack in your spare time.
- Best way to meet: New York area, email, instant messenger.
- Website: www.bobulate.com
- Contact: liz AT bobulate DOT com
- Clifton Evans
- Interaction Designer / Information Architectect currently with ID Grup / Catalan Government - Barcelona (London, England)
- 6 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include drafting schematics, invention and consulting
- Website: www.infostyling.com
- Contact: cd AT iagency.biz
- Chris Farnum
- Senior Information Architect at Enlighten (Ann Arbor, Michigan)
- 7.5 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include library science, search interfaces, controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, qualitative user testing/user research, Visio/wireframes, and product management
- "I'd like to contribute to the IA community by helping other IAs learn from my successes and failures."
- Looking to mentor anyone in a non-manager role.
- Website: crfarnum.webhop.info
- Contact: crfarnum AT yahoo.com
- Nick Finck
- Partner and Director of User Experience at Blue Flavor, LLP
(Seattle, Washington)
- 11 years of experince in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include web design, information architecture, web development, web design theory, interaction design, information design, rapid prototyping
- "I spend a lot of time giving back to the community, be it through publishing content for others, or being a part of programs such as this one. I believe success is measured in the people you know and the things you learn along your journey. Having a mentor available is critical in surviving both the successful times and the hard times. My time is very limited, but I am willing to set aside time to help individuals willing to learn."
- Looking to mentor any freelance IAs, especially those going from being IAs in corporations and agencies to being independent freelance IA consultants.
- Website: BlueFlavor.com
- Contact: nick AT blueflavor.com
- Laurie Gray
- Sr. Information Architect at KnowledgeStorm, Inc. (Atlanta, Georgia)
- 5 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include usability testing, documentation work, wireframing, and interaction design; working in the B2B space.
- "While I do not claim to know everything in this field, I'd like to believe that I have activities in my bag of tricks that I can share to really help others. Many of these items came from my years as a consultant and I continue to use many of them on a daily basis. I have also found that any time I help others, I benefit as well. The inevitable exchange of ideas and information makes me revisit my own methods and critique them. They get stronger at the same time I learn new things from my colleagues. Participating in such activities keeps me thinking!"
- Looking to mentor anyone who has similar interests, including anyone with a similar number of years' experience, structured as a relationship based on mutual needs.
- More about Laurie: www.iasummit.org/2005/speakers.htm#gray
- Contact: laurie.gray AT knowledgestorm.com
- Keith Instone
- Information Architect at IBM (Maumee, Ohio)
- 7 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include breadcrumbs, faceted browsing, UCD methods, and working in large organizations.
- "Mentoring reminds me of the basics of the field, it's helpful to have someone ask the 'simple questions' that are not so simple. I want to help others and share the fortunate experiences that I have had."
- Website: user-experience.org
- Contact: iamentor AT user-experience.org
- Livia Labate
- Director of User Experience Design at Comcast High-Speed Internet (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
- 7 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include information architecture, business strategy
and user experience design
- "I was a mentor in the first round of the mentoring initiative and I
learned a lot in the process. While sharing my experiences I had the
opportunity to revisit assumptions and was reminded of the difficulties
of starting out as an IA."
- Looking to mentor people who are starting out in the field
transitioning from other areas/disciplines. Interested in career goal
discussions, how to user IA in business and how to leverage knowledge
from different domains for better design.
- Website: livlab.com
- Contact: liv AT livlab.com
- Donna Maurer
- Web Communications Architect at DreamWorks Animation (Palo Alto, California)
- 6 years IA and related work
- Strategic IA, complex information-rich sites, user research/usability
testing, IA for CMS, interaction design.
- "Interested in mentoring because: I love helping people to realise they already have the skills to solve their problems. And I learn so much via working with other people and thinking about how I do what I do.
"
- Looking to mentor: anyone who is interested in thinking about what they do, and
doesn't want me to just supply answers.
- Website: www.maadmob.com.au/maadmob_id/
- Contact: donna AT maadmob.com.au
- Harry Max
- Web Communications Architect at DreamWorks Animation (Palo Alto, California)
- 15 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include business to consumer interaction; process architecture and design, communication strategy, enterprise communication, collaboration, and publishing on intranets; senior management.
- "I'm interested in being a mentor so that I might have an opportunity to give back and make a difference. Also, it's one of the few ways I can imagine being able to instill the values and beliefs I have in aspiring Information Architects."
- Looking to mentor senior people who are: talented, knowledgeable, skilled, coachable, and have a strong desire to improve the world.
- Contact: hmax AT dreamworksanimation.com
- Peter Merholz (Peter is not accepting new proteges at this time)
- Director of Practice Development at Adaptive Path (San Francisco, California)
- 10 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include consulting, information architecture, interaction design, user research, various deliverables, modelling, and large-scale content sites.
- "I'm interested in mentoring so that I can be a better IA myself. Also, with my new role at Adaptive Path, solidifying my approach to methods is important. Mentorship can help me think through that."
- Looking to mentor anyone, though most interested in helping folks who are wanting to improve their skills as an IA.
- Website: peterme.com
- Anders Ramsay
- Lead Information Architect at CCH (New York)
- 5 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include user requirements gathering/management and user interface design for enterprise web applications
- "I believe that I have a lot of knowledge and work experience that I can share with someone new to the field. I also believe that a mentorship relationship is mutually beneficial, since it allows a mentee to provide a fresh perspective on my experiences."
- Looking to mentor others in the New York City area through face-to-face mentorships.
- Contact: andersr AT gmail.com
- Elizabeth Randolph
- Principal at better experience (Baltimore, Maryland)
- 7 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include user research, personas, usability testing, functional requirements, content analysis and workflow, site architecture and wireframe deliverables; medical, health and education domains.
- "Mentoring not only allows me to teach and share knowledge and insights in an informal way, but also the sheer act of articulating these things helps me reinforce (or challenge) what I know. Plus, it's very consistent with the guild feel that I have about IA."
- Looking to mentor recent grads, IAs with some experience, and people transitioning from other fields; project or career questions; people interested in independant contracting.
- Contact: betterexperience AT verizon.net
- Marc Resnick
- President and Senior Consultant, Usability Solutions
- 12 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include high-level architecture conception and design strategy consultant.
- "I believe that mentoring in this field is critical for several reasons. First, the field of practice is divided into people who work for technology
companies and consultants. It is hard to decide which was to go without
knowing something about the long term consequences of this choice. Mentors
can help. Second, many practioners are the only IA experts in their group.
Having a mentor can help when you need someone to bounce ideas off. This
includes design decisions as well as career decisions. Third, the
discipline is scattered around the globe. A mentor can tie you into the
global network of practitioners that is essential to success in the field."
- Looking to mentor anyone doing either high level strategy or working for a very small organization.
- Contact: resnickm AT fiu.edu
- Sarah A. Rice
- Self-employed Information Architect / Principle Consultant (San Jose, California)
- 11 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include user research (usability, ethnographic interviews), bottom-up IA (metadata, controlled vocabularies), search, CMS implementation, navigation, typical deliverables (reports, site maps, wireframes, etc), and consulting.
- "I've gained a lot by having mentors, and think its an important part of having a successful career. It's nice just to have someone to bounce ideas and thoughts off of, not necessarily someone who has all the answers"."
- Looking to mentor anyone with similar interests and any level of experience looking for mentoring on projects as well as long-term career planning.
- Website: www.seneb.com
- Contact: rice AT seneb.com
- Dan Saffer
- Sr. Interaction Designer at Adaptive Path (San Francisco, California)
- 5 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include interaction design, user research, web applications
- "I enjoy discussing the work we do and helping people find their way. I know I needed help when I first got started, so I want to pass some of that knowledge along."
- Looking to mentor people who are beginning interaction designers. Willing to mentor in person in the San Francisco Bay Area, or virtually via email and IM.
- Website: www.odannyboy.com
- Contact: dan AT odannyboy.com
- Rachel Switzky
- Freelance user experience consultant (previously with Avenue A Razorfish)
- 7 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include requirements gathering, global user research and usability testing, consulting skills, deliverables, intranets, web-based applications, time-management and project management
- "I want to share my knowledge of almost ten years in the field to those starting out, and I hope to gain an understanding of the challenges people are facing when they are new in the field."
- Looking to mentor either those interested in getting into the field, or those who are new to the field and already consider themselves IAs
- Contact: rswitzky AT gmail.com
- Todd Warfel
- Design & Usability Consultant at Messagefirst (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
- 12 years of experience in information architecture
- Areas of expertise include user research (interviews, ethnography), information architecture, deliverables, and usability.
- "I'd love to share what I've learned with others and help improve the overall IA community."
- Website: toddwarfel.com
- Contact: todd AT toddwarfel.com
