User research is about stories—here’s a few highlights from mine.

Lauren sits on a gray sofa, looking up to the right and smiling
Lauren is standing in a classroom with three tween girls, all watching a small Root education robot on the floor. The girl immediately to Lauren's right is holding an iPad which controls the robot.
Lauren dressed in a green and black plaid suit filming a talk. A camera is in front of her and a large screen with her slides is to the right.
Lauren stands at the far right of a group of people, all facing a wall covered in brightly colored sticky notes. The sticky notes are grouped into clusters, representing research themes.


Skills:

  • Managing research teams with an emphasis on cross-functional collaboration and fostering a human-centered culture within the organization

    • Coaching researchers and others within the business on research best practices and experimental methods

    • Leading cross-functional initiatives through workshops, design sprints, and coaching

  • Planning and executing research efforts from early-stage discovery through concept exploration, design definition, and evaluative / usability testing

    • Qualitative techniques such as field observation, ethnography, interviews, group facilitation

    • Quantitative measures such as A/B testing, surveys, statistical analysis of metrics

    • Applying psychophysiological measures to evaluate user response

  • Leading research operations efforts including managing user communities / panels, overseeing recruitment, and coordinating external partners (e.g. local researchers for international studies)

Professional Experience

WHOOP                                                                                      January 2024 - present

Director of WHOOP Labs

iRobot                                                                                           February 2018 - January 2024

Director of Global Insights (March 2023- January 2024)

Senior Manager of Research (August 2022-March 2023)

Principal Design Researcher (March 2020-August 2022)

Senior Design Researcher (February 2018-February 2020)

  • Manage a team of design researchers executing user and consumer research to support hardware and software efforts

  • Collaborate with other Global Insights group leaders to set overall research strategy that supports and enhances business goals

  • Lead user research for robot hardware and software programs, specializing in studies related to user mental models, spatial reasoning, and human-in-the-loop automation

  • Lead international research efforts for robot programs, building iRobot’s UX research program in Germany

  • Lead research for Roomba j7, including privacy and image feedback studies for the first front-facing camera Roomba

  • Leveraged accessibility research experiences to create an accessibility testing practice, ensuring future products can be used by everyone

XebiaLabs, Inc.                                                                            December 2016 -February 2018

User Research Lead

  • Introduced user research to the product cycle of an international enterprise software organization

  • Collaborated with UX designers and product managers/owners to plan and execute quantitative and qualitative research efforts

  • Created XL User Panel, an opt-in program for customers to participate in research efforts to support research recruitment and execution

  • Identified customer experience needs beyond product improvements and worked with multiple departments to implement changes including product best practices documentation and customer community meetups

  • Advocated for the user population by championing universal design concepts

  • Crafted design changes that make products more accessible to users with color blindness and other accessibility concerns

  • Improved organizational understanding of UX value through “Notes from the Lab,” a monthly user stories newsletter and other presentations

  • Served as the point of contact for all US-based employees about product pipeline, supported Europe-based team and fostered relationships to support regular user interaction and feedback sharing

Charles River Analytics, Inc., Cambridge MA                                       Nov. 2012- Nov. 2016

Human Factors Scientist, Socio-Cognitive Systems

  • Established specialty in cultural and behavioral analysis support for non-scientists and tools to support cooperation among distributed groups, and lead efforts to design tools in this domain

  • Served as behavior research expert, leading and supporting efforts to leverage traditional laboratory practices and crowd-sourcing services such as Amazon MTurk for government projects

  • Owned and managed product creation process from requirements generation, wireframes, and prototypes to run user testing and iteration

  • Fostered relationships with user community leaders leading to invitations for monthly training events of deployed software for the user community on location in diverse settings

  • Managed tasks such as production of grant proposals, formal reports, research papers, and software documentation; present work at stakeholder briefings and conferences

Community Involvement

Smarter in the City, Roxbury MA                           2018-2019                                     

Cohort Mentor (User Research)

  • Support diversity in tech non-profit by providing mentorship to startup teams

  • Lead user research workshops to introduce customer experience and user experience research concepts to startup teams

  • Advise startup teams on evaluating current business questions and developing a relevant research plan

  • Demonstrate how research can support business value propositions through collaboration with other mentors and participation in their workshops on lean canvas and other startup methodologies

 

Right to Write, Bronxville NY                           2008- 2012

Workshop Leader

  • Facilitate weekly creative writing workshops for inmates at Westchester County Department of Correction (Valhalla); programs on Women’s Solutions Drug Rehabilitation Block and Youth Offenders (YOP) Boot Camp Block (older youth, 18-24)

Education

Bentley University, Waltham MA                                                                                    May 2018

Masters of Science: Human Factors in Information Design

Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville NY                                                                      May 2012

Bachelor of Arts: Cognitive Psychology

Senior Thesis: ‘Body and Mind: Physical Self-Perception and Its Relationship to Social Cognition’

Under Prof. Elizabeth Johnston (Psychology) and Leah Olson (Biology/Neuroscience)

Experimental Work: Role of Attention Division on Working Memory, Centre for Cognitive Ageing at Edinburgh University, Scotland; Autobiographical Memory and Moral Decision-Making, Sarah Lawrence College