Lisa Gabriel

Lisa Gabriel brings years of experience in graphic design, digital art, UX/UI education, and curriculum development to Pixels & Priorities. Across two conversations with Metsy Rose, J Schuh, and fellow educator Sandy Harris, Lisa explores what it really takes to develop design skills in a world where information, technology, and AI tools are evolving faster than traditional education can comfortably keep pace.

Lisa challenges the idea that exposure to information is the same as learning. Product and design professionals need opportunities to practice, struggle, collaborate, receive feedback, and experience the friction of working with other humans. Those experiences help build not only technical ability, but also communication, empathy, adaptability, critical thinking, and the judgment required to do meaningful work.

🎧 Episode 028: You Can't Learn This In Isolation

🎧 Episode 029: Coming soon

Connect with Lisa

• LinkedIn
• Dallas College profile

More About Lisa

Lisa Gabriel is a faculty member at Dallas College’s North Lake campus, where her work has included digital art, graphic design, and UX/UI design education.

Her academic background includes a B.F.A. in graphic design from the University of Akron and an M.A. in visual communications from Kent State University. Throughout her career, she has focused on helping students develop both creative skills and the practical thinking needed to adapt as design tools, technologies, and professional expectations change.

That perspective becomes especially relevant as AI reshapes education and the workplace. Knowing how to use a tool is only part of becoming a strong product or design professional. Students and experienced practitioners alike still need to learn how to communicate with other people, navigate disagreement, accept critique, work through uncertainty, and understand the humans they are designing for.

Lisa’s conversations on Pixels & Priorities examine what education needs to preserve even as technology changes: practice, experimentation, mentorship, collaboration, human interaction, and the space to learn by actually doing the work.

For product managers, UX/UI designers, researchers, educators, and anyone trying to remain relevant in a rapidly changing profession, her perspective offers an important reminder: learning is more than consuming information. It is what happens when knowledge is tested, practiced, challenged, and applied with other people.

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