Education
2017 Ph.D. in Information Science, Minor in Communication | Cornell University, USA
My Ph.D. research focused on mobile products and persuasion strategies. I designed, prototyped, and tested iOS apps to examine strategies for motivating energy conservation and found that social dynamics played an influential role in behavior change.
2015 M.S. in Information Science | Cornell University, USA
2011 M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)/ Design | Indiana University Bloomington, USA
2009 B.S. in Software Engineering | Sun Yat-sen University, China
Work Experience
Lead UX Researcher | Google | 04/2022 – Present
- Leading UX research on payments, tax, and compliance
Head of UX Research | NewsBreak, CA | 09/2020 – 04/2022
- Led UX research, designed and executed various UX research including international research
- Formed collaboration processes with cross-functional teams to strategize various product directions and features, with the lens of user engagement and user growth
- Built and managed the UX research team
- Developed research participants pools and communities, engaged the participant communities to make research recruitment more effective, achieving research participation conversion rate close to 90%
Sr. UX Researcher | Neurotrack, CA | 07/2019 – 09/2020
- Planning, conducting, and leading user experience research in memory health and user engagement; strategizing product features based on research insights
- Collaborating cross-functionally, primarily working with product design, marketing, clinical research, and engineering to prioritize product strategies
Lead UX Researcher | WorkSpan, CA | 10/2018 – 07/2019
- Led, planned, and conducted user experience research, primarily focusing on network, growth and user engagement; strategized product features and growth opportunities based on research insights, which led to 300% growth in product users
- Designed WorkSpan mobile app and new features of WorkSpan web app
Postdoctoral UX Researcher | Pennsylvania State University, PA | 08/2017 – 09/2018
- Created, developed and taught IST 402 Emerging Technology: Mobile UX and Design
- Mentored 7 Ph.D. students in doing UX research; managed 5 research assistants in doing UX projects
- Conducted qualitative and quantitative research, and in-person and remote studies in the context of health, well-being, and community
UX Research Assistant | Cornell University, NY | 09/2011 – 08/2017
- Researched the user experience in the context of mobile technology and behavior change, identified key strategies to change people’s behavior and maintain user retention
- Advised over 600 students on web design and development for 4 years; mentored over 120 undergraduate students and 4 graduate students on HCI research and interaction design
Web Designer & Webmaster | CHI2017, ACM | 02/2016 – 08/2017
- Designed and built CHI 2017 website: https://chi2017.acm.org/, the biggest international conference in UX community; developed CHI mini-web app: https://chi2017.acm.org/program/
- Both website and app were used by thousands of conference attendees worldwide
UX Research Intern | NPR, Washington, DC | 06/2015 – 08/2015
- Closely worked with NPR design team, used dscout and interviews (both in-person and remote) to investigated news consumption behavior, and provided research and design insights for NPR digital products
- Designed a UX research toolkit, used by NPR design team
UX Research Intern | IBM, NY | 06/2014 – 08/2014
- Built and evaluated a Lilypad Arduino wearable device to motivate health behavior change in a hot or noisy environment, the features of which were implemented into a B2B product
- Patented strategies for detecting and notifying potential hazards using sensing devices
UX Research Intern | Ericsson, Inc., CA | 09/2012 – 12/2012
- Studied and tracked energy behaviors in commercial buildings, the findings of which contributed to the future vision of Ericsson on an enicient and smart network infrastructure of commercial buildings
Product Design Intern | Wandou Labs, China | 05/2011 – 08/2011
- Improved the information architecture and UX of an existing Wandoujia Android app and designed the 2.0 version, used by millions of Chinese users
Associate Instructor | Indiana University Bloomington, IN | 09/2009 – 05/2011
Usability Analyst | Apple Lab at Sun Yat-sen University, China | 07/2007 – 06/2009
Skills
Data Analysis | Qualitative Analysis (Atlas.ti, Maxqda), Quantitative Analysis (SPSS, Excel), Comparative Analysis
User-Centered Methods | Diary Studies, Observation, Contextual Inquiry, Interviews, Focus Group, Field Studies, Surveys, Photo Documentary, Cultural Probes, Use Cases, Participatory Design, Persona, Scenario, Remote User Study, Storyboard, Affinity Diagram, Usability Tests, Wizard of Oz
Design | Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Muse, Premiere, After Effect
Wireframe | Axure RP, Balsamiq
Prototyping | InVision, Sketch, Framer, Adobe XD
Programming | HTML/CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Java (Processing, Sketch), Objective C (iOS), Python, SQL
Hardware | Arduino, iBeacon, T.I. sensor