Alumni Innovator Spotlight: Julienne Ho (SC ’23)

Julienne Ho (she/her) graduated from Scripps in 2023 with a self-designed major in Engineering and Design. Throughout Julienne’s engineering education at the Claremont Colleges, she saw an overwhelming trend: technologies were developed with only a small subset of people in mind. From car crash experiments to medical devices and the built environment, the current practice of engineering design frequently marginalizes many of the people new technologies are intended to serve, often with severe, even deadly consequences. The Hive was a turning point in Julienne’s education, introducing her to design methodologies that center human experiences and empower engineers to create solutions that help rather than hurt.

Because of this, Julienne incorporated human-centered design into her engineering major, centering user interviews, ethnography, and human empathy in the engineering design process. Her interdisciplinary thesis, informed by needfinding techniques learned through HCD, involved communication design for the now-defunct Mars Sample Return mission at JPL in Pasadena.

After graduating, Julienne joined a consulting firm in NYC called Ecosystem, focused on adapting built environments to be more sustainable and user-friendly by cutting carbon emissions and retrofitting spaces to better suit users’ needs. Her interdisciplinary major helps her communicate with both building users and building operators, enabling her to capture the insights needed to create truly human-centered designs. She recently finished redesigning a library at a small liberal arts college in May!

Julienne welcomes requests to talk about her work, job hunting, academic planning, or anything else. Contact her at juliennefho@gmail.com, julienneho.com, or on LinkedIn.