In addition to consulting through Presto Innovation, Tom is a senior member of a well-established Silicon Valley startup company. Before that, Tom worked at NASA Ames Research Center for 11 years, where as an embedded consultant he collaborated with, trained, and guided teams not only there but also at Johnson Space Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Prior to his job at NASA, he was Senior Usability Engineer in Sun Microsystems and iPlanet (a Sun-Netscape Alliance). Earlier he was Technical Director of the Bellcore Rapid Applications Usability Engineering Group, where he co-created The Bridge method and co-authored the Design Guide for Multiplatform Graphical User Interfaces that was used by all the U.S. regional telecommunications companies (e.g., BellSouth).  He was a post-doctoral fellow at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center after getting a PhD in blend of cognitive science, human-computer interaction, research methodology, decision making, and quantitative methods (measurement, statistics…). He has published numerous journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers. He has taught participatory methods all around the world at conferences and as an embedded consultant in companies.

Before founding Presto Innovation, Madelyn most recently worked at NASA Ames Research Center for 6 years, where as an embedded consultant she created and used these tools, methods, and approaches while she collaborated with, trained, and guided teams not only there but also at Johnson Space Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. With a B.A. in Applied Mathematics she started her career path as a systems engineer and systems analyst, analyzing requirements and processes of configuration and data management systems for satellite communications, advanced publishing for a distributed engineering environment, and information storage and retrieval systems—while employed by Unisys Government Systems and IBM Federal Systems. She then took a more creative path and used her degree in Computer Graphics and Graphic Design to switch careers to production artist and graphic designer at a design studio in Palo Alto. Madelyn continued on from there to create the visual, interaction, and information designs of complex web sites and applications, as well as marketing materials for large companies and startups in Silicon Valley such as Amdahl, PointCast, and ePhysician, which valued her experience in not just graphic design but also in programming. After the tragedy of 9/11, she took a break from all that to do something more meaningful and got her credential to teach math in middle and high schools. She then returned to private industry as a design consultant at Ramirez Design creating the user experience of web-based systems for clients including PayPal, Walmart.com, Stanford University, and more startups. Working at NASA Ames Research Center brought her back to the government, allowing her to come full circle by applying her knowledge and experience from the private sector to the public sector.