I spent six years as a journalist and editor before I became an engineer. That sequence wasn't a detour — it's the thing. I learned to explain complex systems to non-technical audiences before I learned to build them. The writing and the code have always been the same work.
Three-piece communication suite created as interview spec work for Emcien, a big data analytics company whose core product — pattern detection across graph data — was genuinely hard to explain to buyers who weren't data scientists. The challenge: make it viscerally clear without dumbing it down.
Single-page visual explainer translating Emcien's core concept — finding meaningful patterns across millions of graph relationships — into a format a VP of Sales could hand to a prospect. Data visualization as argument.
Sales-ready single-page overview positioning the product for enterprise buyers. Balances technical credibility with plain-language value propositions — the kind of thing that earns the next meeting.
Multi-page leave-behind for technically-curious buyers and champions. Explains graph theory fundamentals, pattern detection mechanics, and real-world applications — rigorous enough to be credible, clear enough to actually be read.
Reported, written, and drawn by Ryan. An investigation into juvenile solitary confinement — the practice, the policy, and the people inside it.
Comics journalism is one of the most demanding forms of technical communication: every panel has to carry information, emotional weight, and visual clarity simultaneously. There's no caption long enough to fix a bad drawing, and no drawing expressive enough to compensate for a missing fact.
This piece required original reporting, synthesis of legal and policy research, and visual translation of conditions that most readers would never directly encounter. It was published as part of ongoing coverage of juvenile justice for the JJIE.
Comics journalism is the only format where the reporter, the illustrator, and the designer are the same person — which means every choice about what to show is also a choice about what to say.
On-camera hosting, scripting, and presenting — produced during the journalism years and after. Covers solo hosting, documentary-style explainers, and co-hosted talk format.
Case studies for two projects — both built and written by Ryan. The writing here isn't documentation after the fact; it's part of how the work was planned and reflected on.
A complete redesign built in collaboration with an AI — from the design system up. The case study covers the methodology, the technical decisions, and what it actually means to use an AI as a creative partner rather than an autocomplete tool.
A task and project management app built for myself, because I have ADHD. Originally built in 2016 with AngularJS; completely rewritten in 2026 with Angular v19 and Firebase. The case study covers both the original product decisions and the ground-up rewrite — including the AI-assisted development methodology used for the rebuild.
Presentation from a college lecture series on comics as a journalistic form — covering history, methodology, and the argument for why sequential art is an underused tool for serious reporting.