Welcome!

Animacy describes the spectrum between the inanimate and animate.

‘To bring something to life’.

If you spend enough time here, you’ll:

• have clear words for patterns you’ve always observed but couldn’t articulate

• understand the behavioral science underneath your big questions

• think more clearly about yourself and the people you design for

You’ll feel at home here if you:

• think across disciplines and refuse to stay in one lane

• want to understand why people think and act the way they do

• want the science without the jargon

Who’s writing this?

Hey, I’m Eve-Marie. Welcome!

I’m a research psychologist who spent years studying performance and imagination. Then I left the lab to design better workplaces.

I’m currently at Shopify, where I lead the systems behind how our people grow, get evaluated, and get rewarded.

But I didn’t plan to end up here.

Two things have driven everything I’ve ever done: understanding what makes people exceptional, and the need to share what I find along the way.

Not just understand in theory, but really deconstruct it. What makes a person reach their potential? What environments unlock high performance?

This mission brought me to a sports performance lab in undergrad, trying to understand optimal experience. Then, a Masters and a PhD where I researched imagination, daydreaming, and how the stories we construct about ourselves shape who we become.

But I couldn’t stay in the lab. I’ve never wanted to just theorize.

So I built university courses on innovation in the workplace and taught them. Started a consulting company helping startup leaders scale and solve real business problems. Found my way into organizational design in the public sector. Then Shopify and tech.

Every curious idea starts as energy. Learning to deconstruct the complex, find the human underneath, and give it shape, that's the practice. That's what I want to share with you.