Hi, I’m Lea! 👋🏻

I’m a designer, engineer and problem-solver who likes to create playful and valuable experiences for people to better understand themselves and the world around them. 

I’m fascinated by the human mind, how we make decisions, how we learn, and how we experience the world.

On a higher level, my goal is to simplify and demistify complexity, and help people become the best versions of themselves.

Currently, my primary research topics is HCI/HRI in the fields of health and education. Specifically, I’m interested in how technology can help with preventive and predictive care, and how our personal devices affect our memory, cognition and learning.

Feel free to contact me at leyamars@gmail.com (:

Education

[2018 - 2020] MA/MSc, Innovation Design Engineering
Royal College of Art & Imperial College London

[2011 - 2015] BA Computer Science (Hons)
Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA

Work

[Sep 2017 - Sep 2018] Product Manager
Rent the Runway, New York, NY

[Aug 2015 - Sep 2017] iOS Engineer
Rent the Runway, New York, NY

[Aug 2016 - Present] iOS Tutorial Producer
raywenderlich.com

[May 2014 - Aug 2014] Program Manager Intern
Microsoft, Seattle, WA

[Sep 2012 - May 2015] Co-Founder
Grinnell AppDev, Grinnell, IA

[May 2013 - Aug 2013] Research Assistant
Glimmer Labs, Grinnell, IA

[Sep 2012 - May 2015] Education Manager
Grinnell College ITS, Grinnell, IA

Speaking

[Nov 2019, Italy] Swift Alps
SwiftUI Workshop!

[Oct 2019, Italy] #Pragma Conference
SwiftUI for Production!


[Sep 2019, New York] try! Swift
SwiftUI for Production!

[Mar 2019, Berlin] UIKonf
Mobile && Me == It’s Complicated

[Jan 2019, Paris] dotSwift
Making TableViews Great Again

[2018, Alexandria, VA] RWDevCon 2018
Custom Views

[2017, Alexandria, VA] RWDevCon 2017
Engaging Onboarding

[2016, New York, NY] NYU, ITP Camp
Prototying for Artists in Xcode & Swift

iOS Development 101


[2016, New York, NY] iOS Soho
6 Swift Swift Tips

[2014, Orlando, FL] Grace Hopper Conference
Research poster presentation on computing for social good in the classroom/ reconstructing the OOP college course

[2014, Orlando, FL] SIGCSE
Research poster presentation on computing for social good in the classroom/ reconstructing the OOP college course.

Awards

[2018] Burberry Materials Research Scholarship
2-year full-tuition scholarship in the amount of £12,400/year for the Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc program at the RCA/Imperial College. Participating in the Burberry Materials Research group.

[2018] Ad Futura Scholarship
2-year merit scholarship from AdFutura, Slovenia, to help with living expenses during my graduate studies at the RCA/Imperial College in the yearly amount of €15.000.

[2015] FbStart Bootstrap Award
Facebook award of $50,000 in benefits to continue growing Presevent.

[2015] NSScotland Conference Scholarship
Scholarship to attend the NSScotland conference.

[2015, 2014] WWDC Apple Student Scholarship
Apple WWDC scholarship to attend WWDC 2015 as one of the 200 recipients and WWDC 2014 as one of the 150 recepients. In 2015, I was featured in BuzzFeed’s Code Like a Girl video and in Tim Cook’s tweet.

2015 Submission | GitHub 2014 Submission | GitHub
[2014, 2013] Grace Hopper Scholarship
Received scholarship to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. 

[2011] Curd Music Award
Received scholarship for free music lessons, worth $1,200, at Grinnell College by performing Sinding’s Rustle of Spring on the piano in a rigorous selection process.

[2011] Ad Futura Scholarship
Received 4-year merit scholarship from AdFutura Slovenia to attend a college in the US in the yearly amount of €27.000.

Media

[2019, London] Strici Iz Tujine Podcast Guest From USA over NYC  to GB | CS, Art and IDE

[2015, New York, NY] Apparatus Podcast Guest
108: Lea Marolt Sonnenschein

[2015, New York, NY] Bitni Pogovori Podcast Guest 101: How Difficult Could Bread-Making Be?

Volunteering

[2018 - Present] Workshop Facilitator
Robogals; helping kids engage with programming and engineering from a young age.

[2016] Product Manager
Civic Hall Labs; part of a pilot pro-bono tech program. Working with the non-profit Center for Arts Education on website redesign.

[2016 - 2017] Club Facilitator
Girls Who Code; facilitated a club at the Urban Assembly School of Music and Art in Brooklyn, NY.

[2014] Mentor
hell0world.org; mentored middle school kids through programming exercises on code.org.

[2012 - 2013] Spanish Instructor
SABER; Developing and teaching a Spanish enrichment curriculum for the Davis Elementary School in Grinnell, IA.