Jenny Liu Zhang is a designer-scholar.

Education

MSc in Narrative Futures University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Futures Institute 2022–2025
  • Thesis: "Fire & Ghosts: Substrates of Conviviality from the Hearth to the Digital Product"
  • Award of Distinction
BSc in Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation University of Southern California, Iovine and Young Academy 2015–2019
  • One of 22 students selected for the 2nd cohort of the Iovine and Young Academy for integrated studies in design strategy, technology development, and startup entrepreneurship.
  • Trustee Scholar (full-tuition merit scholarship)
  • Capstone: "Plot Twisters: Personal storytelling interfaces for students in the 21st century"
  • Personalized concentrations in Interface Design and Narrative Research Methods
  • Minor in Narrative Structure, Department of English
  • 3.8 GPA, magna cum laude

Professional Experience

Founder, Managing Director Plot Twisters 2019–present, grant funded by IDEO and Riot Games as of 2023
  • Leading a design organization of 8 artists, researchers, designers, and technologists to create an online game world for nurturing personal narrative building in youth.
  • Winner of $50,000 top grant prize for OpenIDEO Designing for Digital Thriving.
  • Spearheaded presentations and exhibitions at 4 conferences hosted by the Oxford Internet Institute, Cambridge Digital Humanities, and the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute at St. Andrews.
  • Established 8 multi-year partnerships with educators, civic nonprofits, and psychology labs, including Dr. Isha Metzger's work on healing interpersonal and racial trauma (University of Georgia).
  • Facilitating small teams to conduct mixed-methods research and design, based on a literature review of 34 key works across the humanities and developmental sciences.
  • Collaboratively designing, illustrating, and engineering all gameplay prototypes and websites.
Staff Product Designer Monarch 2025–present
  • Joined as the 4th product design hire of this financial technology startup.
  • Spearheading end-to-end design for core product features including financial reports and cash flow visualization.
  • Led design for the the Monarch browser extension, business tracking, investments tracking, and credit score tracking.
  • Contributing to platform-wide design system updates and component libraries.
Founding Designer Dorsia 2022–2024
  • One of 3 cross-functional designers creating and scaling the flagship mobile booking platform (60K+ users), the restaurant and concierge-facing web apps, and the multi-channel editorial and brand presence.
  • Designed end-to-end UX/UI and worked with engineers to launch over 36 app features in 2 years, including Dorsia Payments, Split Pay, the Dorsia OS for restaurants, and the Book on Behalf concierge dashboard.
  • Managed and operated marketing design strategy for 8 markets, including New York, Miami, London, and the French Riviera.
  • Led speculative product and pitch deck design to enable strategic partnerships with Dom Pérignon and TAO Group Hospitality.
  • Worked closely with the CEO, leadership, and business development on a variety of presentations, supporting 4 key brand partnerships and a successful fundraising round led by Index Ventures.
Freelance Designer Self-employed 2020–2022
  • Specialized in digital UX/UI design, product strategy, graphic design, and front-end web development for 12+ clients.
  • Designed and developed a custom eCommerce storefront for SOSHE Beauty, a sustainable makeup company.
  • Designed and developed pitch decks, media assets, and website for Wright Electric, a zero-emissions aviation startup.
  • Designed user interfaces, brand strategy, and navigation logic for HAGS, a social app for high school students (acquired by Snap). Licensed bespoke handwritten font.
Creative Strategist verynice 2019–2020
Co-founder, Partner Gridflower 2018–2019
  • Led a creative partnership focused on UX/UI design, branding, and presentation design for 11 clients, including entrepreneurs and corporations.
  • Created pitch decks used to close $1M+ funding for 3 early-stage startups.
  • Strategized and designed the mobile and web app for Viasat’s first international expansion into Brazilian and Mexican markets.
Product Management Intern Adobe 2018
  • Collaborated with a new team to conceive Creative Cloud Education, a platform for potentially 45M U.S. students to explore creative tools in math, english, and science.
  • Conducted and analyzed 17 in-depth research interviews with stakeholders.
  • Led market landscape analysis of EdTech competitors.
User Experience Design Intern Adobe 2018
  • Strategized user navigation logic and page design for consumer and business users of the Adobe.com website.
  • Designed interface variants and conducted A/B usability tests to validate layouts.
Immersive Media Design Assistant Al Jazeera 2018
  • Created website design and media assets for AJ Contrast's immersive 360° videos reporting news stories from the Global South.
  • Designed graphics for "Yemen's Skies of Terror", 2019 Emmy nominee and winner of the 2018 Online Journalism Awards.
Market Research Consultant Adobe 2017–2018
  • Conducted and analyzed 40+ surveys and qualitative interviews with young digital creators to inform the design of student-facing portals on Adobe's Behance.
Product Innovation Intern Viasat 2017
  • Conducted user research, UX strategy, and UI design for a mobile app used by North Americans age 65+ to purchase and manage their residential internet services.
Design Contractor Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI 2017
  • Created the data visualizations, brand identity, cover illustration, and print layout for the inaugural AI Index Report.

Grant Awards

$24,000 Governable Spacemaker Fellowship Funded by Metagov 2025
  • Awarded to myself and two teammates from Plot Twisters, Amanda Curtis and Joanna Rivera-Carlisle.
$50,000 Grand Prize Winner Funded by IDEO, Riot Games, Hopelab, and Susan Crown Exchange 2023

Residencies & Fellowships

Artist Fellow Governable Spacemakers 2025
  • Plot Twisters was the winner of the $24,000 fellowship to create an art project focused on reimagining digital governance in online spaces. Building our first minigame, Small Hassles Court, for Twisterland.
  • Funded by Metagov.
Storytelling Fellow Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute 2022
  • Participated in a 3-week transdisciplinary intensive consisting of lectures and salons about the origins, nature, and future of intelligences with 60 other artists, scientists, and academics.
  • Delivered Plot Twisters workshops and presentations for other attendees.
  • Funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation.
Governance Archaeology Resident Media Economies Design Lab, University of Colorado Boulder 2021
  • Created a framework for consensual online community governance in Plot Twisters through a co-creative media archaeology excavation and research-action model.
  • Collaborated with a cohort of 17 artists, researchers, and technologists producing creative artifacts to advance digital democracy.
  • Exhibited at the 2021 United Nations Internet Governance Forum.
  • Funded by the Eutopia Foundation.
Research Resident Centre for Enabling Effective Altruism Learning and Research (CEEALAR)* 2021
  • Granted a 6-month funded residency at the co-living research center in Blackpool, UK with 25 other research residents.
  • Studied how homeostasis and allostasis enable wellbeing through lenses of social emotions and embodied cognition.
  • Supported community building through group dinners, game events, and writing inclusion-promoting policy.
Fellow Interact Fellowship 2020
  • Selected for the 2020 cohort of the community of mission-driven technologists.

Honors

Top Proposal Winner OpenIDEO Designing for Digital Thriving Challenge 2023
Webby Award in Advertising, Media, & PR (Student) The Webby Awards 2019
Renaissance Scholar University of Southern California 2019
Award of Excellence (Short Form) World Journalism Education 2019
Student Print/Digital Journalism Winner National Association of Hispanic Journalists 2019
Minority/Immigration Reporting Winner Los Angeles Press Club 2019
Mars City Design Challenge Winner Mars City Design 2018
Trustee Scholar (full-tuition merit scholarship) University of Southern California 2015–2019
Dean's List University of Southern California 2015–2019

Published Writing

Cranmer, R. & Zhang, JL. The Seeds of Futures Engagement: Oslo's Future Library and Mortality Awareness on TikTok. Journal of Future Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1. 2025, September 1

Presentations & Exhibitions

Zhang, JL. Small Hassles Court by Plot Twisters: Playful conflict resolution game for minor interpersonal issues. Presentation at Online Dispute Systems Workshop hosted by University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder, United States 2026, March 12
Zhang, JL., Curtis, A., Rivera-Carlisle, J. Small Hassles Court by Plot Twisters: A playful space to help you navigate little conflicts. Online Presentation at Metagov Seminar hosted by Metagov 2026, January 28
Kim, YK., Parent, J., Zhang, JL. Twisterland by Plot Twisters: Interactive online game world for fostering diverse personal narrative building. Presentation at Inclusive Gaming Conference hosted by University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom 2024, May 1
Zhang, JL., Kim, YK., & Parent, J. Plot Twisters: Designing Twisterland: An online game nurturing agency through self-reflection. Presentation at Hyperdigital Designs Workshop hosted by University of Cambridge in Cambridge, United Kingdom 2023, June 14
Zhang, JL., Bogatean, H., Chang, C., Lim, A., & Parent, J. Plot Twisters: Creating an online game world for practicing self-regulation. Exhibition at Connected Life Conference hosted by University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom 2022, June 17
Zhang, JL. & Chang, C. Excavations: Designing for Dialogue Online Exibition at United Nations Internet Governance Forum hosted by the International Congress Centre in Katowice, Poland 2021, December 6–10

Teaching Experience

Teaching Assistant University of Southern California 2018
  • Supported 31 students in a course for the fundamentals of web, scripting, and interactivity (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). Assisted lectures, led office hours, and facilitated exam reviews.
  • Mentored students to achieve the highest final exam average in two years (88%).
Teaching Assistant University of Southern California 2017
  • Supported 31 students in a course for server-side scripting (PHP), relational database design (MySQL), and data visualization. Assisted lectures, led office hours, and facilitated exam reviews.

Other Projects & Service

Founding Member boom saloon 2022–present
  • Supporting this global media movement based in Scotland to democratize creativity through publications, digital features, and community salons online and offline.
Cohort Member living room studio 2026
  • A juried mentorship combining archival research and errant design practice to develop the interaction design framework for Plot Twisters' Twisterland.
Founding Member How to Play With Fire 2022–2024
Board Member Open Threads 2025–2026
  • Supported this sewing education nonprofit in Cleveland, Ohio to empower local residents in creative and economic upskilling.
Design Technologist Georgia State University 2022–2025
  • Collaborating with The EMPOWER Lab, a clinical doctoral lab led by Dr. Isha Metzger, to design and validate digital trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) interfaces for African-American youth.
Policy Writer Centre for Enabling Effective Altruism Learning and Research (CEEALAR)* 2021
  • Developed and successfully sought approval for a 20-page policy document reforming the center's granting process for applicant equity and process transparency.
Farmhand Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) 2020
  • During COVID, I lived on a bamboo farm in coastal California for a summer and helped with farming and farm upkeep, including setting up drip irrigation for the property of 200+ bamboo trees.
Team Lead Changeist 2019–20
  • Facilitated discussions with middle and high school students about identity and social issues. Supported their relationships with social justice organizations in the Los Angeles area.
Virtual Reality Journalist JOVRNALISM 2018–19
  • Produced “The Deported: Life Beyond the Border,” a four-episode VR series about deportees in Tijuana, Mexico with a team of 12. Led interviews in Spanish, filmed with 360° cameras, developed scripts and storyboards, and conducted user testing.
  • 2019 Webby Award winner in Advertising, Media, & PR (Student).

* I'm aware of the controversy with Effective Altruism (EA) and I learned a lot from this experience—feel free to ask me about it!