Hi, I’m Kat Vellos. I help people build friendships in places that weren't designed for connection, and I advocate for changing how we design our places, to make friendship and community easier for everyone.

I work at the intersection of two urgent problems: the global loneliness epidemic, and the built environments that lead to it. My background is in UX design and community building, and after years of working directly with adults struggling to make local friends, I regret to inform you that the UX of our neighborhoods is leaving millions of people disconnected. Not because people don't want connection, but because the places they live weren't designed for it.

In 2020, I published We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships, an actionable guide for adults who want more friends, closer friendships, and a deeper sense of community. Its findings were later corroborated by Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's declaration of the U.S. loneliness epidemic in 2024, and by the World Health Organization's Commission on Social Connection report released in Summer 2025, which documented the widespread health and social impacts of loneliness and isolation globally.

Friendship isn’t fluff. The longest longitudinal study done on human thriving (The Harvard Study of Adult Development) found that the most important factor in our health, happiness, and longevity is the quality of our relationships. 

I speak to city leaders, architects, urban planners, designers, public health professionals, technologists, and educators about what it actually takes to design for human connection. It’s applicable whether you're designing a building, a neighborhood, a product, a campus, a company culture, or the regulations and policies governing these spaces.

I'd love to bring this work to your conference, organization, university, or team. My talks are research-grounded, warm, and designed to leave audiences with action steps and the motivation to follow through on them.

I speak for organizations working in: urbanism and planning · public health · technology and product design · higher education · workplace culture and belonging · housing and real estate · civic leadership • citizen advocacy

Recent and notable press: New York Times · NPR · Forbes · Strong Towns · Wall Street Journal · Vox · KPBS · WBEZ · Communication Arts · TEDx · Creative Mornings · 70+ podcast appearances including Life Kit, KQED, Meetup HQ, IDEO U Brave UX, The Design of Business | The Business of Design, and many more.

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