Allison Karas

In practice, research, and teaching, Allison Karas aims to make human-data systems broadly accessible. Her product and interaction design experience focuses on data platforms and enterprise systems that represent, analyze, learn, act, and build with data. Allison received her Master’s Degree in Graphic Design from North Carolina State University and her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from Iowa State University.

Industry Experience

Allison has over 15 years of product and service delivery experience from high-growth startups and global design firms. Currently, Allison is a lead product designer at Tempus Labs, Inc., a technology company dedicated to making its growing library of clinical and molecular data accessible and useful for patients, physicians, and researchers. Allison leads the design of real-world data tools and systems, including those that structure clinical data, manage internal medical ontology, and monitor incoming EHR records.

Allison’s product and interaction design practice is grounded in visual representation and systems design. She spent six years in the graphics studio at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (2008–2014), leading communication design that illustrated the relationships between people, cities, infrastructure and the environment. She consistently draws on those core skills and methods as a graphic designer for architecture and urban spaces, and applies them to visualize infrastructures and systems for digital experiences. Allison also worked at IA Collaborative on their Interaction Design team (2019), and Uptake Technologies (2017-2019) on their Data Platform.