ABOUT RACHEL ALLEN DILLON
Manager, Learning & Development
Senior Instructional Designer, Professional Standards Training at T-Mobile
Rachel Allen Dillon completed her Bachelor of Science in Art, with a focus on Graphic Design, from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1994. Rachel has been using her visual design expertise for over 25 years in various aspects of her career, including marketing materials, web design, and instructional design. Throughout her professional journey, creativity has always been an integral part of her work, and she even enjoys expressing herself through art and writing in her free time.
Rachel, a talented author and illustrator, published a non-fiction children's book called "Through Endangered Eyes - a poetic journey into the wild" in 2009 under the Windward Publishing imprint of Finney Company, now known as Rowman & Littlefield. Her book was recognized with an Eric Hoffer Honorable Mention award in 2010. Rachel has been featured in "Wildscape Magazine" as an artist, contributed to gallery and museum exhibitions, and spoken at Art Educator conventions and conferences. In 2015, The Nature Conservancy commissioned Rachel to create two paintings for them.
Before returning to the corporate world, Rachel spent three years as an art teacher at a private elementary school, where she not only taught but also developed the art curriculum. She later found a career that combines her design skills and teaching experience and became a full-time instructional designer in 2017. Rachel has taught courses in eLearning Visual Design and Architecture, as well as Instructional Design 101, at CSU Sacramento-CCE. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge and techniques with other instructional designers to improve their visual design and page layouts. Rachel has spoken at Learning Guild online conferences in 2020 and 2021, presented at DevLearn 2021, and has been a guest on the International Podcast Instructional Designers in Office Drinking Coffee - IDIODC.
In May 2022, Rachel completed a Master of Science degree in Instructional Design & Technology from CSU Fullerton. Her thesis emphasized the significance of incorporating visual design principles in eLearning to lessen cognitive load. Additionally, Rachel obtained a graduate certificate in eLearning Instructional Design from the University of California, Irvine Extension Program in 2019.