Carmen McDonald, known as “Carm”, has had a love affair with all things design as early as she could remember. Formally trained in Architecture, she transitioned into Web & Graphic Design and as her career progressed, she found herself immersed in information architecture and later user experience design. She is currently Sr. Product Designer (UX) on the Search & Product Data Excellence team at CDW and also teaches UX Design courses part-time at General Assembly.
Carm holds a B.S. in Architecture from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an M.S. in Information Architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology, she is also a member of both IAI and IxDA Chicago. Throughout her career, she has continuously mentored and taught media studies and design at both the high school and graduate level. An advocate for bridging the gap in education equality and STEM, she volunteers her free time to organizations such as iMentor and BlackGirlsCode. Active in Chicago's tech community, she is co-founder of the recently launched DesignTech, an organization that connects professional black women in the field of design technology and rallies for inclusion and diversity in tech. Whenever possible, Carm enjoys reading and mobile gaming apps.