Challenge

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed structural limitations in traditional laboratory training. Travel restrictions, workforce shortages, and global demand for rapid upskilling made in-person instruction difficult to scale.

CDC needed more than a temporary solution. It needed a durable, globally accessible platform capable of delivering high-fidelity procedural training while maintaining scientific accuracy and supporting long-term growth.

This wasn't a course redesign—it was the creation of a new enterprise platform for a global workforce.

Product Strategy & Program Development

When organizational funding came through to unify CDC's laboratory learning ecosystem under OneLab, my team was given full autonomy to define what the immersive piece of that vision would become. There was no product brief or prescribed approach—only a mandate to define what immersive technology could become within the OneLab ecosystem.

I co-led concept development, product strategy, and roadmap ownership from the ground up — defining the platform vision, establishing its role within the broader OneLab ecosystem, and creating the release cadence and lifecycle governance needed to support long-term growth.

Team & Execution

I recruited, built, and led a multidisciplinary team spanning Unity developers, instructional designers, motion designers, and SMEs. We operated within an agile model, running weekly sprint cycles while aligning with broader enterprise project management standards.

Together, we developed more than 100 interactive laboratory assets and architected the platform for real-time collaboration, enabling geographically dispersed laboratorians to train together in shared virtual environments.

I also designed the operating model and workflows required to sustain the platform, ensuring it could scale beyond its initial release and support ongoing content expansion.

Driving Adoption

Building the platform was only half the challenge. The laboratory workforce didn't have headsets, wasn't familiar with VR as a training modality, and was distributed across the country. Convincing them this was worth their time — and then actually getting them set up — required a change management effort as deliberate as the product work itself.

We shipped headsets to labs across the country and traveled on-site to configure devices, connect networks, and answer questions in person. We ran standing office hours — calls with labs nationwide where I'd ask directly: what are you seeing, what isn't working, what do we need to fix? IT staff joined in real time and we troubleshot together.

What each site needed was a local champion—someone who would take ownership, build confidence, and keep the platform moving after we left. We couldn't be everywhere. So we built a model that didn't require us to be. Once a site was connected and had a local champion, the platform became self-sustaining. That model is what allowed a platform built by a small team to reach a globally distributed workforce.

Impact

OneLabVR launched as a persistent, globally accessible immersive training platform for the laboratory workforce, establishing a scalable model for delivering procedural education without geographic constraints.

The platform established a sustainable foundation for continuous training, real-time collaboration, and ongoing expansion across CDC's global laboratory network.

My Role

As Associate Creative Director, I co-owned product strategy, led design direction, and built the team and operating model required to deliver and scale the platform.

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