Who are you, and what do you do? What do you like to do outside of work?

I’m a professor in the field of information science at Drexel University in Philadelphia. I also did my PhD at Drexel, so Philadelphia feels quite like home at this point. (All the more so since my husband and I bought our first house just over a year ago.) I’m originally from the Milwaukee area in Wisconsin.

At work, my main role is teaching in our human–computer interaction and user experience program, though I do some research, most of which is about understanding how people interact with digital systems and generating design insights for improving those systems, especially from an ethical perspective. My official title is Associate Teaching Professor, which indicates that my job is teaching-centered and that I’m midcareer.

I write a lot in my work—emails, lesson plans, papers—so typing and word processing are the primary things I do on the computer.

Outside of work, one of my biggest hobbies is writing novels, which also involves a lot of typing. (I’m not so romantic as to write a novel by hand, though for early-stage idea generation I do prefer paper.) I have several novels in the proverbial desk drawer at this point; someday you’ll find my work in a bookstore.

Off the computer, I am an ultra-distance runner.

I never did any sports growing up—in fact I was quite overweight for my first twenty years. Then my mom signed up my whole family for a local 5K race, and I fell in love with the training. I ran marathons for a few years, then was drawn to even longer races. Now every year I run one or two 100-mile races, plus some shorter distance events.

My most recent 100-mile race was the Western States Endurance Run (which I had been trying to get into for nearly a decade!). My training involes about ten hours of running each week, plus time lifting weights and swimming.

I also practice classical guitar (though not as much as I’d like during busy training seasons), and I take care of a growing orchid collection (twenty and counting, from nine different genera). And I do a lot of traveling!

What hardware do you use?

My main computer is a 14-inch MacBook Pro that I carry back and forth to campus every day. When I’m at home (where I do most of my typing), I plug it into my Apple Studio Display, which is connected to my ErgoDox EZ.

I use a Logitech MX Ergo wireless trackball mouse and an Uplift height-adjustable standing desk.

And what software?

I type into TextMate probably more than any other piece of software. It’s a simple but powerful plain text editor that I’ve been using since 2007, when I got my first Mac. Using TextMate, I write all my lesson plans in Markdown, and I write my research papers in LaTeX.

If I am working in Markdown and need a WYSIWYG editor for some reason, I love Typora.

If I need a word processor, I gravitate toward Apple Pages. I try to use Microsoft Word as little as possible, though since my university is a Microsoft 365 subscriber, I have to use it for many things at work.

For fiction, I write in Scrivener, a kitchen-sink app for managing large writing projects.

And for my personal notes, I use Bear. For many years I used Evernote, but the software got too bloated for me, and I didn’t need all the new features they were adding. For me, Bear is perfect, not least because it uses Markdown!

What’s your keyboard setup like? Do you use a custom layout or custom keycaps?

I used to use a Microsoft ergonomic keyboard, but the one I had for many years conked out after the news came out that Microsoft was discontinuing their ergonomic keyboards, so I explored other options (and upgrades).

Meanwhile, I had switched to typing in the Colemak keyboard layout in 2017. My brother had switched to Dvorak the year before and was saying how great it was, so I did some reading about keyboard layouts and naturally decided that Colemak was better. It took a few months to make the switch, and I haven’t looked back. Anyway, it was a plus for me to be able to have a keyboard whose keys were physically arranged in Colemak.

Enter the ErgoDox EZ. Because most of my computer work is typing—nothing too fancy—I don’t make use of all the capabilities the ErgoDox offers, but it’s still been well worth it. I mostly use a single layer, though I have a second layer set up for things like controlling the key backlighting and a numpad.

My favorite feature of the keyboard is having Backspace where most keyboards have Caps Lock, as suggested in the getting started documentation. Besides that, I have a single key assigned to launch Spotlight with my left index finger or thumb. I also have two keys assigned to 5 and 6 to let me hit those buttons with either my left or right hand, depending on the situation, since I’m apparently not that disciplined a typist.

What would be your dream setup?

What I have is pretty close! Sometimes I’d like a nicer chair—I use a wobbly stool that came with my Uplift desk. But the thing is, I like how my somewhat uncomfortable seat prompts me to stand up after a while. If the chair were too comfy, I’d just be sitting all the time! I would love a second Studio Display, though!