Degree(s) and Year(s) Degree(s) Conferred: Ph.D., 2011
Graduate Academic Program(s) at Penn State: Information Sciences and Technology
Current Professional Title: User Experience (UX) Researcher
Current Employer: Google
Briefly describe your professional career, including your employment history and notable accomplishments
Prior to enrolling in my Ph.D. program at Penn State, I received a B.S. in Information Technology (IT) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. During that time, I participated in an IT internship with Purdue Pharma and business internships with VISTAKON (a division of Johnson & Johnson) and General Electric (GE). Following my Ph.D., I worked for Michigan State University as a tenure-track assistant professor. In this position I continued my research on uses and impacts of information and communication technologies (ICTs) across various contexts, with an emphasis on interpersonal relationships. I currently work on the Search Social Impact team at Google NYC, where I serve as the lead user experience researcher for Search Education.
Please list honors, awards, and professional achievements
While an academic, I published five journal articles and three book chapters; received one best paper and one best poster award; delivered 12 invited talks and 12 paper presentations/conference proceedings (seven in the U.S. and five abroad; Africa, India, Jamaica, and the UK – twice). While doing so, I was involved with communities such as AMCIS, CHI, ICA, and NCA. As an industry professional at Google, I contributed to ~10 products both domestic and international. Of those, two were completely new when they launched on Google Search and the others were feature updates for existing products.