Selected Portfolio
Selected research programs and studies spanning applied industry UX/CX work and academic ethnographic fieldwork.
Apple IS&T Enterprise UX Research Programs
Developed and managed multi-year research programs and projects spanning internal IS&T support tools, collaboration & productivity tooling, and how we work at Apple, combining deep, inclusive foundational discovery, HCI usability/RITE testing, and journey mapping. Built durable, reusable research infrastructure, including the development of an AI driven indexed repository for internal user archetypes, workflows, and research data to work at scale. Within the C&P space, built a repeatable pilot/proof-of-concept framework for evaluating new tools before enterprise rollout, scoped from single-team pilots to organization and company-wide initiatives resulting in significant risk mitigation and cost avoidance.
Work at Apple: EEP, AI Sentiment, Heuristics & Guidance Studies
Beginning with the Future of Work initiative, conducted studies examining employee experience and productivity, sentiments toward emerging AI tools and their engagement with AI, pairing those insights with heuristic evaluation frameworks. Findings were applied to the development of practical guidance for responsible adoption and to strategies for the implementation of new tools and AI in various workflows.
Apple: Internal Consulting, Research Advocacy, Inclusion & Global Enablement
Consulted IS&T and non-IS&T teams on research and championed democratized access to research findings across teams, from synthesis at scale to executive-level presentations for senior leadership. Helped shape and design change-management strategies, workshops, and survey instruments to support large-scale tool and process rollouts, including localization considerations for research, tool access, and support work across global geographies.
Amazon: Proxemics Research and Process Management
Designed, managed, and led mixed-methods proxemics research at a 4,500-person, 2-million-square-foot fulfillment site during the COVID-19 pandemic, combining interviews, observations, mapping and obstacle testing, and surveys across all shifts to evaluate health and safety practices, digital tool effectiveness, and operational workflows. Findings informed sustained safety compliance gains, an estimated $1.3M in annual cost avoidance, and established qualitative research as a credible approach within a highly quantitative operations culture. In parallel, applied Six Sigma/Lean methods, KPI analyses, Gemba and Kaizen sessions to continually refine the productivity and efficiency of departmental operations and management.
Google Express: Site Operations Research
Ongoing mixed-methods research on retail/remote site operations, combining RTY/DPMO process metrics with ethnographic interviews of site operators to improve performance, morale, and app usability, reported to local, regional, and national management.
GOiMarketing: UX/CX Research Practice
Built and ran an insight/UX research practice supporting client product teams, including market positioning, competitor analysis, journey mapping, and usability testing, most notably for real estate industry clients, tripling project throughput and driving significant client site traffic growth.
Family, Continuity & Ritual in the Denver Hmong Community
Two years of IRB-approved ethnographic fieldwork in Denver, CO, including 300+ interviews with community members, religious leaders, physicians, and organizers, examining how spiritual practice and family continuity are negotiated across generations. Findings presented at multiple conferences and as a doctoral dissertation.
Objects, Ontology & Potentiality Among the Hmong
Fieldwork in Denver, CO and Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN examining traditional Hmong understandings of spirit-inhabited objects and decision-making around soul loss and wellbeing, drawing on interviews and observation with 80+ practitioners across generations.
Exhibit Interactions & Emergent Learning (Museum Studies)
Multi-site ethnographic study, with a museum-studies collaborator, of how visitors engage with a Hmong shamanic altar exhibit and how student docents convey embodied cultural knowledge to non-Hmong attendees.
Teacher Training Program Evaluation
Interdisciplinary study assessing the pedagogical structure and impact of a teacher-training program at California State University, Northridge, using structured interviews, surveys, and observation with 60 students and 6 instructors.
Space, Place & Building Re-Use in Edinburgh, UK
Year-long study of green-space use and church-to-storefront building conversion in Old Town Edinburgh, combining interviews, observation, and GIS analysis across four seasons of foot traffic.
Temporality & Personhood Among the Dai, China
Visiting-scholar fieldwork in Wuhan, Hubei, interviewing 150+ Dai and Han Chinese informants on culturally derived understandings of time, economic activity, and identity. Presented at professional conferences and served as a secondary master's thesis.
Contemporary Japanese Transnationals in Los Angeles
Ethnographic and archival research, with the Japanese American Museum, on the motivations and lived experience of Japanese transnational migrants, including gender, neoliberalism, and community. Presented at conferences and as my primary master's thesis.