"Theresa became the design lead role on my product team and blew us all away. What stood out immediately was her organizational clarity. Theresa has a rare gift for cutting through complexity and making sure everyone in the room actually understands what's going on. She brings that same clarity to her design thinking: her ideas are sharp, well-reasoned, and always grounded in what actually matters.

Beyond the craft, she navigates adversity and difficult dynamics with a steadiness that's hard to teach. She doesn't rattle easily, she doesn't let friction derail progress, and she finds a way to move things forward even when the path isn't obvious. Quick-footedness like that doesn't come naturally to everyone, but it clearly does to Theresa. What I admire most is how she gives feedback. She's honest and direct, but always kind and encouraging. She makes you want to do better, not feel bad that you didn't. Great mentorship and teaching aren't skills everyone can develop, but for Theresa they seem to be a natural extension of who she is. Any organization that lands Theresa on their team is lucky. She's the kind of leader who makes the work better and the people around her better too."

"I had the pleasure of hiring Theresa Charleston at Centene, and from day one she’s been an absolute powerhouse. She’s one of the most capable and well-rounded designers I’ve worked with—able to take complex, high-stakes projects from zero to launch with clarity, speed, and polish.Theresa played a pivotal role on a major initiative that lacked product leadership, and she seamlessly stepped in to lead both design and project management. She brought order to chaos, aligned stakeholders, and delivered work that moved the needle—strategically and creatively. She’s a sharp thinker, a natural leader, and an all-around great human. Any team would be lucky to have her in the room."

"I had the pleasure of hiring, managing, and collaborating with Theresa as Senior UX/UI Designer on the National Geographic Learning Design Team. As the first dedicated UX/UI Designer on the team, Theresa was not only a key contributor on both platform and product UX/UI design, but an essential resource in fully operationalizing UX and UI workflows, best practices, microcopy development, and tools and resources.Theresa played an integral role in the acquisition, implementation, and configuration of Abstract, the department's Design System for management of the team's UX and UI files and file version control. Theresa's approach to UX/UI Design is user-centered, research-based, and data driven. She develops close and successful working relationships with all internal stakeholders, especially product and engineering teams. Theresa is creative, energetic, authentic, and dedicated to design that must meet the needs of the user to be successful."

"Over the past three years, I've had the pleasure of partnering with Theresa on multiple large-scale, enterprise initiatives at Centene, and I can confidently say she is one of the most talented UX professionals I've worked with. Theresa possesses a rare combination of strategic vision and exceptional execution. She has an incredible ability to understand complex business challenges, user needs, and technical constraints while maintaining a clear focus on delivering intuitive, meaningful user experiences. Whether she's shaping a long-term experience strategy, leading design efforts across large programs, or diving into the smallest interaction details, Theresa consistently ensures that every solution is thoughtful, cohesive, and user-centered.

Theresa is also an outstanding leader and collaborator. She excels at bringing together cross-functional teams, aligning diverse stakeholders, and fostering productive discussions that lead to better outcomes. Her ability to listen carefully, ask insightful questions, and incorporate feedback creates an environment where everyone feels heard and valued. She consistently elevates the work of those around her through mentorship, thoughtful guidance, and an unwavering commitment to excellence.

Beyond her impressive skills, Theresa is simply a joy to work with. She is kind, intelligent, creative, and always approaches challenges with professionalism and a positive attitude. I would welcome the opportunity to work with her again and recommend her without hesitation for any senior UX role."

"Theresa kicks ass. She is one of the more creative, witty and detail oriented people I know. She kicks said ass through clean, simple research-influenced work that puts an emphasis on treating branding, visual design and user experience as a complete system. Speaking as a developer, she was a pleasure to work with, constantly impressing me with her technical understanding and willingness to work-through the many questions that inevitably arise from bringing designs to life.

She's good people."

"Theresa was an absolute pleasure to work with. As a front-end developer who interfaces with UX and designers on a day-to-day basis, I can firmly say that she "gets it" from desktop to mobile and everything in between.

Her designs are crafted ready for handoff and she always thinks through all possible scenarios. I'd love to work with her on future projects and would recommend her abilities to anyone who is in need of the services she offers."

"With nearly two decades of UX'in under her belt, Theresa has hands-on experience in nearly every area of her craft - from wireframes & prototypes, to visual / interaction design, to information architecture, to user testing, she's probably gotten her hands dirty in it before!

During her time at WatchTower Theresa was a key contributor in bringing our flagship product to market.

More importantly, she's a good person with a big heart who takes pride in her work."

"Theresa played an integral role in creating our user experience and interface for our flagship product. She also designed our website. I was most impressed with Theresa's ability to listen to our users' needs and turn them into a functioning UI for which we consistently get compliments. Her results were particularly impressive because she did the listening remotely. She also patiently and effortlessly engaged across our team to working with the front end developers, head of product, data scientists and business development teams. I would work with Theresa again anytime."

"Our project was a multi-step workflow for business users. Our initial user interface was not intuitive and required handholding the users to be useful. Theresa picked up on the concepts and on our users' problems very quickly. She worked fast and kept an open mind eventually producing no less than four distinct ways to approach the users needs. In a true product discovery journey, Theresa produced a clickable prototype that we put in front of end users. We conducted user experience tests and she worked quickly to turn around the final changes to the user interface to address user concerns. Due to her speed, our engineers had enough time to code up the final design. And due to her creativity, our team was able to iterate through at least four designs in the time it would have taken us to do one design. We saved engineering time and expense while increasing user happiness...all in a shorter time frame. I recommend Theresa for any User Experience challenges."

"Theresa is a rockstar. Not only does she have extensive industry experience but she really takes all of her work to heart and does the best job possible. Her professionalism and talent speak volumes while her drive helps get big projects across the line.Her designs are beautiful, user-friendly and just make sense. I've had the pleasure to work with Theresa on various projects and she never disappointed. Her mock-ups are very detailed, she always works with data to back up her designs and she is always open to feedback."

"I have worked with Theresa on my first website in 2008 and now again to launch a brand new website for my medical practice. She has been very easy to work with and she understands her client's personality and incorporates that into the designs. I have recommended her to another medical practice which were happy with their results as well. She is always up to date on web trends and even assisted me in finding a photographer for professional pictures for the website as well. I would highly recommend Theresa!"

"I had the opportunity to work with Theresa on a number of features for Orbitz vacation packages. She always contributed to the process with both a strong vision and a flexibility to approach a opportunity from a number of different perspectives. She always did her homework to understand the customer and business needs, and came to the table with a solid foundation to contribute effectively to the decision-making process.

Theresa not only has a creative mind, but the knowledge, work ethic and passion to drive a successful project forward."

"Theresa looks at UI projects from all angles. She comprehends the goal of the project, explores various options, and always greatly improves the UI experience. She stands by her design choices and can present her work and the reasons behind her decisions intelligently. She brings passion to her designs and has an undeniable energy she shares with the team.

Theresa is also comfortable with the Agile methodology and iterative environment as well as being well-versed in technology. She's a huge asset to our Design team at Orbitz."

"I had the pleasure of working with Theresa as a fellow designer in the UI design group at Orbitz. Theresa immediately impressed me with her dedication and passion to her projects, and her insistence on quality. Having a background in development, she was able to discuss matters with our developers in detail, as well as suggesting methods or options to try to get her designs to work best. Theresa is a very creative designer, bringing in pop when needed, as well as balancing information and UX with the brand and marketing aesthetics.

Theresa would be a valuable addition to any team or organization looking to strengthen their design, UX and creative culture."