Kat Vellos is the author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships. She is a user experience designer, facilitator, social artist, illustrator, and community creator. Her work crosses disciplines, but is almost always focused on helping others thrive by having more creative and connected lives.

As a user experience designer, she’s worked for Slack and Pandora, as well as with the creators of Siri designing the first iteration of Bixby. Kat has been profiled in Forbes and quoted in FastCompany for her work as the founder of Bay Area Black Designers which is a professional development community for Black designers and UX researchers. She’s researched, designed, and advised on the user experience of countless flows in digital products serving millions of people. She’s now turned her UX expertise towards combating the loneliness epidemic, by helping millions of people experience greater fulfillment in life through the cultivation of thriving platonic relationships.

Her experience with facilitation and interpersonal dynamics runs deep. Over the last twenty years Kat has created, run, and mentored a variety of communities focused on everything from spoken word poetry to photography to digital design to authentic connection and friendship. She’s the creator and facilitator of Better than Small Talk, an immersive experience of authenticity and connection that’s been held in Seattle, Oakland, and Berkeley.

She has been a facilitator for Partners for Youth Empowerment, The Power of Hope, and Young Women Empowered. She’s also been a speaker at UX Week, Social Good Tech Week, the Transforming Loneliness Summit, AIGA, Techqueria, and a podcast guest on Revision Path. Her writing has been featured in Open Review Quarterly, Jane’s Stories, and the NW National Service Symposium.

Kat's mission and legacy are to be a driver of creation cycles that educate, inspire, and empower others to live their best lives possible.