I am a researcher, innovator, manager, and mentor with proven track record in industry and industrial research – launching successful products and POCs, influencing innovation and corporate strategy, and holder of 28 granted patents. I believes that technology, grounded in deep understanding of people, can deliver positive impact to customers, businesses, and society.
I am Head of UX Research at Amazon Halo and an Affiliate Associate Professor at the Human-Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) department at the University of Washington. My work includes introducing new approaches for research-data modeling to support product direction and prioritization, defining research roadmaps, strategy, and budget in partnership with PMs, Engineering, Design, and Marketing, and driving and executing quantitative and qualitative research efforts, successfully launching software and hardware consumer products.
Before joining Amazon Halo I was a Principal Research Scientist and Manager of the HCI group at FX Palo Alto Laboratory (FXPAL). My research focused on investigating, designing and evaluating tools and approaches for promoting workplace wellbeing, activity recognition, and remote collaboration. Following human-centered design methods, my research involved understanding current workplace practices and outcomes, designing and testing novel systems aimed at improving the well-being, and sensing approaches for workplace activities.
Prior to joining FXPAL, I worked as a UX Innovation Lead at Intel’s PC division. As part of my work, I was the UX Lead of a cross-company team responsible for delivering tools for media management for everyday users.
Before that, I was a Senior Researcher at Intel Research Seattle, working on ubiquitous and mixed media systems.
I received my PhD in Human-Computer Interaction from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. I received my B.Sc. in Computer Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (HUJI).
Patents and Publications
Former student interns
Kristin Williams
Vincent Tseng
Rafal Kocielnik
Di Lu
Scott Cambo
Elena Agapie
Daniel Epstein
Alex Mariakakis
Eveline van Everdingen
Sebastian Günther
Michael Yeganyan
Francis Iannacci
Stephanie Rosenthal
Sean Munson
Shaun Kane
Predrag Klasnja
Sunyoung Kim