Kiera Makes Things / Selected work

Designing Useful Things

Cybersecurity engineer building practical software, research prototypes, and strange fancies. I love working iteratively and making things we all need.

Featured projects

Live

Orbit, A Fancy Planner

Started 2025 · November origin · iOS + web

I have never experienced a day as a vertical list. Orbit started as an attempt to make time look more like it feels: circular, finite, and constantly being rearranged.

A circular 24-hour planner for visual time blocking, recurring routines, templates, and drag-based daily scheduling.

iOS App Store Web App Read More GitHub (Private)

Why I Made This

I built Orbit because traditional planners never worked particularly well for my ADHD or the way I actually schedule my life.

A lot of tasks do not happen on a strict weekly cadence. Instead, they need to happen five days after I last did them or two weeks from completion. Orbit's regenerating task system was built around that idea and remains my favorite feature.

I also wanted a better way to see where my time is actually going throughout the day instead of constantly jumping between calendars and task lists.

Live

No More Data Brokers

Privacy · Public source · Local-only

Privacy rights should not require paying the same industry that profits from personal data. I objected to paying a subscription to remove information that should not have been collected in the first place, so I made the process free and kept the data in the browser.

A free client-side tool for opting out of 28+ data brokers, with prioritized removal links, CCPA/GDPR request templates, and broker-specific re-check tracking. Profile and removal state stay in the browser. No account or backend.

Web App Security Notes GitHub

Why I Made This

Data brokers collect and sell personal information, while paid removal services can turn that same exposure into a subscription product. I wanted the opt-out process to be understandable, free, and directly usable by the person whose data is involved.

The privacy constraint is also the technical thesis: the tool is a single self-contained HTML file with no build step or dependencies, and all profile and broker-removal state stays in localStorage rather than being sent to a server.

Fresh sessions use a fictional profile by default, while confirmed removals surface broker-specific re-check dates because broker profiles can reappear after being re-scraped.

Security engineering

Production

Access Governance Automation

Node.js · TypeScript · Slack · Okta · Email security

I built a Slack-based system for requesting and approving access across dozens of applications.

What It Demonstrates

Workflow design, API integration, identity provisioning, safe write controls, and end-to-end ownership of an internal security product.

Read Case Study

Production

Google Workspace / GAM Automation

Google Workspace · GAM · Apps Script · TypeScript

I automate the repetitive parts of Google Workspace administration without hiding what the automation is about to change.

What It Demonstrates

Practical identity administration, idempotent automation, protected-account handling, and tools designed to be inspected before they write.

See GAM Work

Case study

Pet Sticker Maker: Security Case Study

FastAPI · Python · React · GitHub Actions · File Upload Security

What happens when a fun pet-photo tool accepts untrusted images and processes them on a server?

Read Security Case Study NYU AppSec Write-up

All security work (12) →

Apps & products

Live

Time Since Chore Manager

Started December 2024 · iOS + web

Some routines should reset from the last time they were done. I do not change my sheets every Tuesday—I change them a certain amount of time after I last changed them. A surprising number of routines work this way.

iOS App Store Web App Read More

Live

Time Here, Time There

Started 2021 · Ongoing timezone coordination

I kept opening world clocks and then doing the time-zone math myself anyway. This puts every city on one movable timeline so the overlap is visible.

iOS App Store Web App Read More

Live

Catflakes

Started 2018 · Java to iOS

When I was learning to code, I challenged myself to recreate a cat-snowflake meme in Java. That was the entire idea. Years later, I rebuilt it for the App Store because apparently I remained committed to the premise.

iOS App Store Web App Read More

Live

Passport Buddy

Started January 2020 · Ongoing travel planning

Group travel gets complicated fast when friends hold different passports. I started with a giant spreadsheet; eventually the spreadsheet became an argument for building an app.

Web App Read More

All apps & products (9) →

Lab: experiments & research

Concept

The NYC Trolley Problem

NYC culture · Transit · Swipe game

New Yorkers already have strong opinions about stations, neighborhoods, transit modes, public art, and pigeons. This turns those arguments into a deliberately impossible series of binary choices.

Prototype

Personality Systems Research

Assessment · Prototype · Identity

Most personality tests give you one tidy label and send you on your way. I wanted to see the messier version: overlapping traits, relative strengths, and changes over time.

Prototype

Colony Cat Management

Graduate-school era · Computer vision · TNR

I live near several cat colonies, encounter street cats almost everywhere I travel, and love cats enough to revisit a graduate-school model that was only right about 70% of the time.

Everything in the Lab (5) →

About / The person making these things

Security engineer. Software builder. Very willing to make a tool for a small problem.

I work on security systems, and I make apps because I keep finding problems I'd like to solve. Some are useful day to day; some are experiments that got out of hand. I care about privacy, clear interfaces, and software people can actually use.

GitHub