Roni Hirsh Samuel Greenberg

I was born and raised in Berkeley, CA. I attended a rather hippie Jewish preschool a few blocks from my house, and it went just about how you would expect. We sang Beatles songs, did something called “chocolate meditation,” and had an annual day where we would exclusively eat beets and asparagus and see what happened on the other end. I like to think of that activity as my first root cause analysis. I continued on in Jewish day schools all the way through the end of high school. I credit my deep-rooted empathy and sense of responsibility to the world around me to the nurturing education I received in my early years.

Both of my grandmothers were professional artists, and my parents (who joke that the art skills must have skipped a generation) did everything in their power to expose me to fine arts and give me the means to pursue my artistic goals. Beginning in second grade I began going to art camps every summer, and haven’t stopped creating from there. Whether it is watercolor paintings or sketchbooks filled with different designs of texting phones, I have adored the satisfaction that comes from seeing the impact a carefully crafted visual can have on the viewer for as long as I can remember.

My growth as a designer pivoted midway through my college career due to a significant injury. I had a herniated disc in my lower back, which required me undergo a year of intensive physical therapy and ultimately opt for back surgery. This experience shifted my perspective: while I was still driven by the desire to create striking visuals, my eyes were open to the impact a well-designed product or service could have in relieving my pain. To design a chair solely to be a beautiful chair might be enjoyable, but designing a chair which is beautiful AND easy to get in and out of for users with lower back pain? That is far more fulfilling and nourishing.

This experience drove me to push my understanding of who I am as a designer. I realized that one can create striking visuals throughout the design process while still being sure to solve important issues. Creating a well thought out service blueprint and presenting it to a user in an interview can be just as rewarding as displaying a painting in a gallery. Through further design work, I realized this thrill I felt from showing someone a striking visual was really pride. I felt this same thrill, this pride, from thoroughly researching, identifying, and solving real world issues. It doesn’t hurt if you make some kick-ass visuals along the way.

Currently, I work as a Service Designer at Kaiser Permanente, working as part of a small but mighty team doing service design for national care delivery technologies. I love getting to work directly on services that are used by all 12+ million of KP’s members, with people who are all aligned on one goal: making KP more accessible and work better for ALL of its members.

These days, outside of work I like to spend my time lap swimming, dancing around the house to my favorite album of the moment, painting & exploring new mediums for visual art, finding the perfect objects to decorate my home with, spending time in nature, and laughing with friends and family.

 Education

Northwestern University

M.S. Engineering Design Innovation (September 2020 - March 2022)

I spent the majority of the early to mid pandemic getting my Masters throughthe Segal Design Institute. I completed my thesis research project investigating cell phone addiction through the lens of mental health.

B.S. Manufacturing and Design Innovation (September 2016 - July 2020)

September 2016 - July 2020

I spent my formative undergraduate years in sunny, windy, freezing Evanston when I completed my undergraduate studies at Northwestern University, where I earned my degree in Manufacturing and Design Engineering.

Work Experiences

Kaiser Permanente

Service Designer (July 2024 - Present) - Care Delivery Technology

  • Same responsibilities and role as below, with added scope. Team now accountable for service sesign for all care delivery technologies.

Experience Strategist (March 2022 - July 2024) - Telehealth

  • Led human centered design work in the form of clinician & patient interviews, co-design sessions, home visits/interviews, clinician & staff shadowing, and internal staff workshops.

  • Collaborated as part of a close-knit team of 4 to craft and refine experience requirements and playbooks used by product and engineering teams to build out ideal experiences for a range of services including: Home Video Visits, Inpatient Video Visits, Omnichannel Experience.

  • Strategically evaluated ideal state designs against what is operationally feasible to create priority for phased rollouts of services.

  • Led creation of key metrics for evaluating clinician and patient experiences, designed internal dashboards for visualizing metrics for multiple different audiences (leadership, product, design teams), led conversations with metrics and reporting team to track and identify all data inputs needed to build out dashboards.

Human Centered Design Intern (June 2021 - September 2021) - Telehealth

  • Led the design of internal tool for storing and communicating research insights, partnered with other KP innovation teams to draft and submit funding proposal to governance board.

  • Led 30+ interviews with staff working across the enterprise, conducted iterative UX testing and co-created with staff.

  • Planned design workshops for KP staff, created interactive workshop stimuli, and assisted in facilitation of workshops.

  • Conducted research into analogous services models, recommended changes to KP to improve service recovery and support for KP members and clinicians.

Segal Design Institute

Design Coach (September 2020 - March 2022)

Teaching Assistant for Graduate class: Design 401-3 “Human-Centered Design Studio 3, Service Design”, core class in M.S. Engineering Design Innovation taught by Professors Liz Gerber and Amy O’Keefe.

Teaching Assistant for Undergraduate classes: Design 320 “Introduction to Industrial Design Methods” taught by Professor Greg Holderfield, Design 297 “Visual Thinking for Design“ taught by Professor John Hartman, Design 380-1 “Industrial Design Projects” taught by Professor John Hartman, Design 350 “Intellectual Property and Innovation” taught by Professor Dan Brown, Design 386 “Manufacturing Engineering Design” taught by Professor Dan Brown

  • Offered guidance and grading for students’ deliverables, including: industrial design sketches, storyboards, pitch decks, Photoshop renderings, CAD models, and case studies.

  • Facilitated studio environment both in person and in Zoom classroom by leading discussions & activities and communicating student needs to the professor.

  • Held weekly office hours to provide additional academic resources for students.

  • Worked closely with Professors to develop project prompts and deliverable requirements.

Segal Design Intern (June 2019 - July 2019)

I was placed in leadership positions on two NIH funded projects, ESPEED and DIY Diabetes Kit.

  • Led all communication between student interns and team of clinicians from Northwestern Medical and five local research hospitals.

  • Interviewed hospital staff and conducted site visits to understand constraints and requirements of stroke treatment process.

  • Brainstormed solutions and created eight different proposed changes in stroke treatment process.

  • Led learning collaborative for team, assessed feasibility of proposed changes, created revised recommendations for hospital administrators.


Foresight Mental Health

Design and Marketing Intern (June 2018 - September 2019)

  • Blueprinted the user experience of clinic space by planning the patient pathway.

  • Converted space into a functional clinic, designed use and interior of each room, rapidly iterating while balancing a minimal budget.

  • Incorporated proprietary prescription software and other tech devices into multiple exam rooms.

  • Facilitated medical network expansion to obtain patient referrals, efforts which led to over 75% of the clinic’s new patients.

Northwestern University Hillel

Director of First Impressions (September 2017 - December 2019)

  • Created a welcoming environment in the building, designed event flyers, planned and set up events, gave tours of the building.

  • Managed operations to ensure high quality service delivery, handled complex visitor situations.

Firecracker Math

Interim Site Director (July 2017 - August 2017)

  • Assumed all responsibilities of Director of Firecracker Math Camp after sudden injury to previous Director: Planned activities, delegated work to teachers and counselors, coordinated daytime functioning of over 50 campers, and communicated with parents.

Counselor (June 2017 - July 2017)

  • Planned and oversaw daytime activities for children.

Technion Institute of Technology

Research Assistant (July 2015 - August 2015)

Performed lab-based research on applications of pluripotent stem cells in regenerative medicine. Isolated human amniotic epithelial cells (hAEC) at Ha’Emek Medical Center under mentors Rawan Damouni and Professor Eliezer Shalev

  • Induced stem cells to differentiate into cells expressing oocyte-markers using growth factors.

  • Analyzed protein expression using FACS analysis and immunofluorescent staining.

Skills

 

Research

User Interviews, User Observations, Journey Mapping, Design of Experiments, Patent Claims Analysis

Design

Service Mapping, Data Visualization, Industrial Design Sketching, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, ProCreate

Engineering

LEAN Design, Production Planning, CAD (Solidworks, NX, Fusion,) GD&T, CNC Milling, Injection Molding, Python, MatLab, AMPL