Erin Marshall

Sr. Product Experience Strategist

731-435-0171

INTERESTS

Pets, travel, ever-evolving hobbies, facebook marketplace, Star Trek, book clubs, cocktail classes, current obsession with neon yellow-green.

My Design Journey

Childhood
(Yep, we went way back)

Intro to Design Thinking

MA, SCAD in Experience Design

Independent Business Owner

Joining Vanderbilt

Current Focus

The story goes that my first steps, led not to toys but to a tantalizing paint can, beyond my supposed reach. I was consistently labeled an “artist” and found joy in all creative problem solving. As you may expect, my career interests sprawled across a spectrum as diverse as law, medicine, design, art, psychology, and linguistics. College posed a conundrum as I grappled with the options before me, even daring to triple major in design, psychology, and English language studies before Graphic Design emerged as the clear frontrunner.

Enter the concepts of Design Thinking, Human-Centered Design, and User Experience. My disparate interests found synthesis in a singular pursuit. It was as if my passions were a combined superpower, now poised to be wielded with purpose. I was hooked.

I pursued a masters’ degree from Savannah College of Art and Design and learned about Tim Brown’s Change by Design and IDEO. I collaborated with other design experts and relentlessly pursued learning empathy- and research-driven design methods.

With this new mindset, I began to seek meaningful application opportunities by working directly with clients, many in the healthcare industry.
This natural progression to healthcare was spurred by my personal encounters with complexities during historical family health crises. Marrying my passions and skills with firsthand struggles, I embarked on a mission to redefine patient experiences through empathy-infused design.

Through the years, my entrepreneurial endeavors flourished, but a pivotal juncture arrived in 2019 when I faced the decision of expanding my contracted support staff or scaling back. My business was thriving, my team was growing, but I was increasingly engaged in the unavoidable tasks of managing a business instead of empathy-driven design within healthcare. The seismic shockwaves of COVID-19 in 2020 further underscored this need and catalyzed my transition to the Business Engagement Strategies team, a group focused on innovative, value-based care solutions, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, as the Sr. Experience Design Strategist. Here, my advocacy for diverse users—patients, team members, partners, providers, and more—found fertile ground, as I spearheaded initiatives to embed human-centered strategies into the institutional fabric.

At Vanderbilt, I continually champion concepts such as "design thinking" and "experience design" through the creation and leadership of an enterprise-wide Designer Workgroup, by conducting learning opportunities called “UX Moments,” by mentoring and leading fellow design teams and contracted groups, and through advocating for and proving the value of these strategies in executive meetings.

Through collaborative advocacy and education, I continually strive to empower designers with the skills and executives with the vision of a more empathetic and user-centered healthcare landscape.