Abraham Marinez is the Product Design Group Director at Federal Student Aid (FSA), an office at the U.S. Department of Education which is the largest provider of student financial aid in the nation. As the first Product Design Group at FSA, he is responsible for establishing human-centered design practices within the agency and leading/building a team of UX professionals overseeing the user experience for students, parents, and borrowers on StudentAid.gov and the myStudentAid app.



Abraham also leads FSA’s virtual assistant, Aidan. Aidan uses advanced technology—artificial intelligence and natural language processing—to answer common questions about financial aid, loan balances, repayment plans, where to find pages on StudentAid.gov, how to identify their loan servicers, and more, without having to contact a call center. Virtual assistants offer a model for improved customer service and Aidan is just one example on how federal agencies are leveraging AI technology to engage with customers.