Cara is an enthusiastic and inquisitive designer who cares deeply about helping others to articulate their unique experiences in order to find their own solutions. With a Psychology and Cultural Anthropology degree in her toolbox, Cara is well-acquainted with the practice of social mixed-methods research. Since joining the WāhiWhakaaro/ThinkPlace team, Cara has become increasingly passionate about the magic that can emerge from combining design thinking methods and research methods when solving problems.

Over her time at ThinkPlace|WāhiWhakaaro, Cara has conducted a large number of qualitative interviews, quantitative surveys, and completed literature reviews to draw out rich insights about system processes, governance strategies, business models and sociocultural attitudes. Combining these different research angles allowed Cara to produce insight reports through a holistic systems lens. These projects have kick-started important new relationships between key players in clients’ ecosystems, inspired greater collaboration between and within clients’ teams, and sparked creative problem-solving in clients’ next steps beyond the project.

Before coming to ThinkPlace, Cara was a teacher and youth worker, working with people with a diverse range of learning needs and thinking styles, including neurodiverse and disabled people. Through this, she learned to take a creative approach to communication, iterating her strategies on the fly to suit the diverse needs of her clients and audience. As a neurodivergent, disabled, and queer woman herself, Cara naturally brings inclusivity to every project, always considering how the situations at hand might be affecting those on the outskirts.