Hi, my name is Damon.

My pronouns are he/him or they/them. I am a researcher, educator, designer, and community organizer currently living in Southeast Michigan. Across these different roles, all of work focuses on making the complex clear.

I recently finished my PhD at the University of Michigan School of Information. My dissertation, Information Care Work: Cases of Mental Health Access Among Doctoral Students, introduced a new theoretical concept that is the throughline of my research agenda. Information Care Work is the relational labor of helping someone reach meaningful support by: validating that their needs are worthy of acting on, interpreting bureaucratic systems and specialized language, and guiding people through navigating information about their available support options.

I am currently on the academic job market, seeking a research position where I can continue this work. My ongoing work aims to extend Information Care Work to other contexts where people must navigate opaque systems to get help.

I’m also an Instructional Designer and Educator with significant experience teaching courses on Information Architecture, team-based problem solving, and UX research methods. Most of my courses use active learning strategies and flexible class policies so that students can focus on learning the material.

My work as a community leader and organizer mainly focuses on helping local transgender folks learn about, and access gender affirming care. I’ve also done crowdsource fundraising when there was a critical need in my community.

In a past life, I was a photographer who studied at the School of Visual Arts. Although I have shifted away from art in recent years, I still enjoy taking gender affirming portraits for people in my free time.