Brittany Pacelli
Staff Product Designer | UX Research & System Strategy
Modernizing High-Consequence Ecosystems & Mission-Critical Architectures
- Active TS Clearance
- Greater Boston
- in/brittanypacelli
- Pacellibrittany@gmail.com
Operating at the intersection of systems architecture and human cognition, I specialize in de-risking high-consequence technology portfolios. I transform fragmented legacy systems into unified, data-dense ecosystems by institutionalizing research governance and scalable design logic that aligns cross-functional leadership on multi-year modernization goals. Proven record of increasing delivery velocity by 20% through System-of-Systems thinking and decision-support modeling.
EXPERIENCE
| Kessel Run U.S. Air Force
- Systems Governance: Architected a unified research strategy for a portfolio of 8 enterprise Command & Control (C2) applications, aligning mission planning and execution logic across globally dispersed operational theaters.
- Modernization Strategy: Engineered reusable decision-support models and research frameworks that codified user constraints into technical requirements, accelerating design-to-delivery cycles by 20%.
- Research Operations (ResearchOps): Established portfolio-wide ResearchOps to standardize discovery artifacts and data fidelity, reducing redundant R&D efforts by 15% and ensuring command-level decision quality.
- Portfolio Alignment: Directed design strategy for high-consequence operational suites (mission planning & execution), transforming siloed tools into a synchronized “System-of-Systems” architecture.
- Enterprise Governance: Scaled and governed a shared Design System for data-dense, real-time UIs, enforcing cross-application standards that ensured operator reliability and reduced friction in high-tempo environments.
- Cross-Functional Authority: Served as the primary design voice in Balanced Team leadership (PM, Engineering, Command) to define multi-year roadmaps and resolve architectural UX bottlenecks.
- Decision-Support Engineering: Owned the end-to-end design for a global Command & Control (C2) planning product, architecting real-time resource calculators and constraint engines that reduced critical task time from hours to minutes.
- Cognitive Human Factors: Conducted embedded ethnographic studies in high-tempo Air Operations Centers to simplify workflows; successfully mitigated automation bias and increased operator trust in system-generated data.
- System Integrity: Delivered high-fidelity, data-dense interfaces optimized for sub-second interaction speed and mission reliability in low-bandwidth, high-consequence environments.
- Legacy Modernization: Led the structural redesign of fragmented legacy workflows (e.g., sortie scheduling and multi-system data ingestion), transforming archaic manual processes into streamlined digital enterprise tools.
- Foundational Systems: Authored original UI patterns and technical design documentation that served as part of the architectural baseline for what eventually evolved into the portfolio-wide design system.
- Workflow Interoperability: Identified and resolved data-flow bottlenecks between disparate USAF systems, improving the usability and accuracy of cross-functional mission data.
| Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
- Clinical System Architecture: Optimized oncology research platforms managing high-complexity clinical datasets, reducing error vectors in patient tracking and study protocol workflows.
- Evidence-Based Design: Led qualitative research (interviews, usability tests) with clinicians to bridge the gap between complex research requirements and clinical execution, directly improving data accuracy and decision speed.
- Dashboard Logic: Developed personalized clinical dashboards that simplified complex data-tracking tasks, measurably improving task efficiency for oncology research teams.
PROJECTS
Portfolio Scaling & Modernization Strategy –
Led a 6-month cross-center initiative to audit architectural and UX constraints within the mission-planning ecosystem. Delivered the Strategic Modernization Roadmap that transitioned the portfolio from supporting hundreds to thousands of concurrent missions and established the standardized research models now used for all portfolio-wide modernization sequencing.
Safety-Critical Logic: Multi-Domain Integration (Fuel Calc) –
Architected the cross-application dependency logic and validation states for a real-time C2 calculation engine. Redesigned formula workflows to eliminate manual error points and integrated disparate planning data into a single source of truth, reducing end-to-end execution time from hours to minutes.
All-Domain Interoperability & Governance Framework –
Institutionalized a Cross-Cutting Capability Framework to resolve delivery delays caused by fragmented team prioritization. By synchronizing research and workflow standards for shared features (timelines, notification), enabled distributed teams to execute in parallel, increasing delivery velocity by 20% and ensuring day-one interoperability.
AWARDS
- Civilian of the Year
- Multiple product & portfolio excellence awards for product delivery
SKILLS
Strategy & Governance: Portfolio UX Strategy, ResearchOps & DesignOps, Evidence-Based Roadmapping, Cross-Functional Alignment, Risk Mitigation, Modernization Sequencing.
Systems & Research: High-Consequence Architecture, Cognitive Human Factors, Information Entropy, Decision-Support Modeling, Mixed-Methods Research, Workflow Interoperability.
Design & Delivery: Enterprise Design Systems, Information Architecture (IA), Advanced Prototyping, Continuous Discovery, Data Visualization for Complex Systems.
Tools: Figma, GitLab/Jira, Lucidchart, Insights Management Systems (Dovetail), Real-Time Data Visualization.
EDUCATION
UX Certification, User Experience Design – General Assembly, Boston MA | NOV 2018
Bachelor of Science, Biology/ Pre-Med – University of Massachusetts, Boston MA | MAY 2016
Post Baccalaureate, Fine Art Photography – School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA | MAY 2008
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Fine Art Sculpture – West Virginia University, Morgantown WV | MAY 2007