2026 Speakers

Gloria Osardu, PhD is an experienced senior business strategy executive with 18+ years of experience leading customer insights and analytics teams; providing the right data, insights, and opportunities to the right leaders, ensuring decisions and prioritization are made with the right information. Gloria has built, led, and scaled teams (researchers, analysts, operations, and CX insights) and driven strategy at some of the world's most successful global companies (both Fortune 500 and startups). Gloria currently leads the global consumer research organization at Yahoo! Her UXRs, Brand, and Marketing researchers, Analysts, and Consumer Insights Researchers provide actionable insights and recommendations that inform consumer-first strategies and product decisions across Yahoo's Products, Brand Properties, and Services.Before Yahoo, Gloria led global research teams within industries such as Gen AI, SaaS, Education, Supply Chain, Finance/Fintech, Payroll, and Federal Government Contracting. She believes that durable insights and research in a world of big data and AI are the keys to de-risking business and customer experience decisions. She advocates strongly for equitable, ethical, and accessible, research practices and utility for ALL.

Sarah Bentley is Director of User Experience and Service Design at The Coca Cola Company, where she leads research driven design efforts to create seamless customer and consumer experiences across physical and digital environments. With 15 years of experience at the intersection of human behavior and technology, she focuses on exploring how people think, feel, and act through UX research to inform thoughtful, practical design decisions. Her work in end-to-end journey management has translated qualitative and quantitative insights into scalable experience strategies that improve usability, efficiency, and satisfaction across complex systems.

Jeta Surman is a strategic research and insights executive with over 15 years of experience driving growth and innovation across fintech, payments, and digital platforms. She currently serves as Vice President and Head of UX Research at American Express, where she built and leads a global research organization supporting commercial cards, payments, and banking products. Known for aligning customer intelligence with business strategy, Jeta has held senior research leadership roles at Square, Twitter, and Kabbage, and is a champion of accessibility, inclusion, and cross-functional innovation. She is also the co-founder of Ladies That UX, NYC chapter, mentoring the next generation of design and research leaders.

Joe Kleinwaechter is Vice President of the Global Human Experience team at ADP, where he leads the teams responsible for how people experience ADP’s products—across design, research, content, and conversational interfaces. Since joining ADP in 2018 as the company’s first vice president hired into a UX role, Joe has helped scale and mature human-centered design practices across all of ADP’s product portfolio. Today, his work focuses on aligning product strategy, customer insight, and design execution to improve how millions of people interact with work and payroll every day. Prior to ADP, Joe built his career in FinTech, serving as Vice President of Innovation and Design at two of the world’s largest financial technology companies. There, he helped operationalize design thinking and modern innovation practices inside highly regulated, complex organizations—work that continues to shape his perspective as a keynote speaker. Joe is also a musician, most noted for ruining many homecomings, proms, and weddings by playing Muskrat Love by Captain and Tennille. As a Pisces, he has a deep disdain for all things related to astrology. You can learn more about his slightly off-center way of thinking on his leadership blog, The Stranded Starfish. He is based in Atlanta.

Data without empathy is just noise. Armed with a PhD in cognitive neuroscience, a Master's in clinical counseling, 13 years as a research leader, and a passion for behavioral statistics, Cheryl Abellanoza has led the charge from UX to CX strategy in the SaaS space. Cheryl champions innovative team building, diverse creative thinking, and core psychological principles to design products and experiences that humans don't just enjoy, but genuinely value!

Utkarsh Seth is a Senior Staff UX Research Manager at Google. Utkarsh has over 15 years of industry experience in the field of UX. His primary focus is to enable organizations to shape user experiences that are crafted, useful and usable. Over the last several years he has built and scaled multiple complex UX teams both within and outside the United States. His work revolves around empowering his team to achieve UX excellence by coaching people not only in their craft but also integrating in the product development process and co-own the product life cycle. Outside of his core UX work, Utkarsh is deeply passionate about coaching and mentoring aspiring UXers entering the field. He has been collaborating with Savannah College of Art and Design over the past 8 years to bridge the gap between academia and industry. His work has been published in Worth Magazine, Augusta Chronicle & Fast company. More recently, Utkarsh has been a close advisor on the UX Research program SCAD has launched. Utkarsh continues to ensure that the curriculum is informed by the needs of businesses that hire for the role and that the students are going through coursework that will fulfill those needs.

Jordan Cooke is Head of Design, Digital Transformation at PepsiCo, where he leads cross-functional experience design and innovation for consumer and enterprise products. With more than 15 years of experience spanning global tech and consumer brands, including leadership roles at Meta and Edible Brands, Jordan builds and scales design ops, research-informed processes, and AI-augmented experience practices that drive measurable impact. He’s passionate about elevating design’s strategic role in complex organizations and exploring how emerging technologies reshape user experience.

James Villacci is a seasoned UX leader with over 15 years of experience in human-centered design, human factors, and applied cognition. As Director of UX Research & Research Platform at HelloFresh, he built the company’s global “Research Kitchen” from the ground up — evolving it from a team of one into a cross-organizational capability that powers AI-augmented discovery, insight reuse, and UX observability across brands worldwide. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and K5 German TV, showcasing his thought leadership in scaling research, democratizing insights, and transforming customer understanding into measurable business impact.

Liz Freeman is a visionary Insights Leader with over 15 years in UX Research, adept at driving customer-centricity and business results. She translated user and business data into strategy, fostering organizational change and user-friendly products at companies like FanDuel, User Testing, and The Home Depot. Currently, she leads UX Research at The Weather Company, prioritizing user needs to maximize product value (The Weather Channel app, Weather.com).

Ganesh is a lead Product designer with over 10 years of experience, leading the UX design and research of large-scale enterprise and consumer applications. He currently leads UX design for internal provisioning systems in Google Cloud. He has driven over 10 plus product launches saving $140 million+. Additionally, he has Scaled UX from the ground up as a founding designer in three organizations including Qualcomm and Sound Transit. He possesses extensive multi-domain expertise, encompassing SaaS, AI, Developer tools, banking and fintech, media and entertainment, as well as government agencies. He is also a board member of design forward alliance and chair of SIGCHI Puget sound. His articles on HCI and product design have been featured in the AI journal and Business Insider.

Honor Bowman Hall (b. 1984) is an artist and experienced arts administrator and academic leader living and working in Atlanta, GA. Bowman Hall graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design with an MFA in Painting in 2014, and after moving to Anchorage, AK to teach and manage and not-for-profit contemporary art gallery, returned to SCAD in 2017 to join the faculty.

Bowman Hall has since served SCAD as a professor of Foundation Studies and Painting, Associate Chair of Foundation Studies, Chair of Fine Arts, Associate Dean of the Schools of Foundation Studies and Fine Arts, Dean of the Schools of Fine Arts and Visual Communication, and most recently, Executive Dean of Academic Services.

Under her leadership as Chair of Fine Arts, enrollment in the School of Fine Arts increased 20%. Under her leadership as Dean of the School of Fine Arts, enrollment increased an additional 16% while her leadership as Dean of the School of Visual Communication saw the Illustration program at SCAD grow to the second largest program at the university. Her leadership contributed to several national and international awards and competition wins for SCAD Painting, Photography, and Illustration students.

As Executive Dean, Bowman Hall is the senior academic leader at SCAD Atlanta and leads a team of six Associate Deans and Deans. In her role, she spearheads/contributes to initiatives in all of SCAD's locations across Atlanta, Savannah, SCADNow Online, and Lacoste, France. Her accomplishments in each academic leadership role center on her work to build community, grow enrollment, promote student and alumni employment in creative fields, secure student accolades and awards, and to ensure that student work in all programs reaches professional quality.

Bowman Hall is a practicing painter, and her artwork is represented by galleries Kai Lin Art (Atlanta) and SCAD Art Sales (Savannah, Atlanta, online).  She has created murals on commission across the United States in the public sector. Her paintings appear in collections across the US and abroad. She has experience leading and managing teams of high performing educators, developing curriculum and course content, and teaching art to students at all levels from elementary school to graduate students enrolled in an MFA program.

As Director of UX Research at Rubrik, Priyanka Raju leads the user research function across the full product portfolio, strategically supporting the company's ascent as the world's leading Data and AI Security Platform. Priyanka is a recognized leader in scaling research practices to connect deep user understanding directly to tangible business results. Her comprehensive experience includes a decade of driving product success, from providing strategic consulting to Fortune 500 clients (such as American Express, Pepsi, M&T Bank, Takeda, and Eli Lilly) to accelerating growth at nascent startups. Her foundation in design strategy and architecture drives her commitment to transforming complex user insights into powerful narratives that shape industry-defining user experiences.

Clara Kliman-Silver is a UX strategist based in New York City. Currently, she works as a UX research manager on the Material Design team at Google and volunteers with local UX communities. Her research focuses on the emergent role of artificial intelligence in UX design, design systems, metrics frameworks for measuring product development, and developer experience.

Paige is a user experience professional with over 20 years of experience between global consultancies, start-ups, and in-house.

I’m a Senior Researcher with a quant + qual background, currently serving as User Research Lead for AIOps + GenAI at Splunk > a Cisco Company. My expertise lies in strategic research—my work has directly influenced product roadmaps and led to the introduction of new features across our toolkit spanning AIOps, Observability, and Generative AI. Over the years, I’ve led company-wide research programs, developed frameworks for experiential baselining, and designed large-scale UXR strategies focused on research democratization. I believe that cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder alignment are essential to impactful research—partnering closely with Data Science, Engineering, and Design teams, while negotiating roadmap priorities with PMs and senior leadership at the Director and VP levels. Living in San Francisco, I’m deeply inspired by the intersection of technology and human behavior—a curiosity that ultimately led me to pursue User Experience Research as a career. Beyond my full-time role, I’m also an independent researcher and writer in Human-Computer Interaction, exploring topics such as Human-AI collaboration and Human-XR experiences.

With decades of experience in UX research, Marcos has led impactful work at Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, GetYourGuide, and Choco Communications. He is currently a Staff UX Researcher at Meta Reality Labs Research, where he focuses on complex qualitative research, emerging technology, and long-term user adoption. At Meta, he has also led internal explorations into how UXRs can meaningfully integrate AI into their workflows. He values UX360 as a space that fosters community, connection, and the exchange of ideas across the UXR community, especially at a time when our tools, contexts, and roles are rapidly evolving.

Sarah Kling is a Senior UX Researcher on Amazon's Apps and Games Research Team within Devices, where she leads strategic research initiatives that shape product strategy and drive measurable business outcomes. Her work spans foundational market research, customer segmentation, and product validation across Amazon's device ecosystem, including research that validated multi-billion dollar revenue opportunities and influenced Amazon's multi-OS browser strategy. Sarah specializes in AI integration in research workflows and maintains a weekly LinkedIn thought-leadership series helping research teams transition from experimentation to systematic AI capability. She has spoken at the Insight Association's Ignite AI Conference on building AI-capable research teams and developed frameworks for moving organizations from individual ChatGPT usage to strategic AI integration. Her research on AI adoption shows qualitative analysis time reductions of 4x and has informed best practices for hybrid human-AI research models. Her research has directly informed executive decision-making at the VP level and driven significant improvements in product adoption and user engagement across Amazon's device portfolio.

Niels Schillewaert, PhD, is Head of Research & Methods at Conveo.ai – an end-to-end AI-led insights platform. Niels combined entrepreneurship and commercial research with academic research throughout his career. He was a co-founder at Human8 (formerly InSites Consulting) and has a strong academic background as a Professor of Marketing at the Vlerick Business School. His research was published in leading scientific journals such as Journal of Marketing, The International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Services Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and others. Niels is a frequent speaker at international conferences and has guest lectured at several academic institutions e.g. Columbia, NYU, University of Georgia. He is the Former President of ESOMAR – the association of the global insights and analytics community.

Amit Sathe, UX Research Director, Docusign Amit is a UX Research Director at Docusign. Amit has grown and scaled user research and Research Operations (ResOps) practices at DocuSign, IBM (Data-AI), and Rockwell Automation. With a diverse background spanning Engineering, Human Factors, and eBusiness, Amit has navigated various UX and Design disciplines throughout his professional journey, encompassing both consulting and in-house positions. His core strengths lie in advocating for the pivotal role of user research and insight-driven approaches within product development, ultimately aiming to deliver a world-class product experience that consistently exceeds user expectations.

Clark DeLashmet is the Chair of UX Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Where he strives to create a space that breeds curiosity centered on interactive and digital experiences grounded in the exploration of emerging technology and user focused design. While at SCAD, he’s also taught in the Advertising and Branding program and worked with a variety of other programs such as SCADpro, where he’s had the opportunity to lead projects with various external clients such as Google, Home Depot, and BMW.

Overall, his interests focus on UX and how to apply it to various disciplines. Whether it’s pushing his students to create useful digital content, innovative new products and services, or promoting brands and products in an engaging way, he strives to harness emerging technology and immersive storytelling. Outside of academia, Clark has delivered a wide variety of solutions for clients such as Coca-Cola, Warner Brothers, Diageo, and Moët Hennessy.

Hannah Flower serves as Vice President for SCAD Atlanta and General Counsel and leads the university's fastest-growing location, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2025. Flower has been a transformational leader at the university for more than 14 years, holding executive and senior leadership positions across departments including academic services, legal affairs, and international student services. Flower serves as the university’s ambassador within the Atlanta community, promoting SCAD Atlanta's premiere cultural institutions, including SCADshow and SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film, as well as community-facing initiatives, such as SCAD Art Sales, the university's premier art curation and installation service; SCADpro, a business and design innovation studio; and SCAD SERVE, the university's design studio focused on elevating quality of life across SCAD hometowns through the SCAD SERVE Community Fund.

Prior to joining SCAD, Flower was a mergers and acquisitions attorney at international law firm Bryan Cave (now Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner) and began her career in education at Gwinnett County Public Schools. She holds a Juris Doctor degree from Georgia State University College of Law and a Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education from Georgia State University.

Bobby Meixner is the Vice President of Solution Marketing at UserTesting. Bobby has been helping businesses optimize and scale their customer experiences for more than 20 years through his leadership roles at Oracle, eBay, and Magento. He resides in Los Angeles and when he’s not talking about customer experience, he can be found on the pickleball courts.

Eric Dolan is General Manager – Americas at Bolt Insight, where he helps global brands turn complex data into sustainable growth. With prior experience at Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Kenvue, he is known for building partnerships that deliver lasting impact.

Naz Tugtekin is Associate Director, Research & Design at Bolt Insight, where she designs & leads qualitative, quantitative, and UX research initiatives for global brands. With many years of experience at Ipsos, she brings deep expertise across methodologies and industries. Naz is known for embedding emerging trends into research design and translating insights into impact not only for clients, but for the broader research community.

Ben is the co-founder and CEO of Dialogue AI, an AI-native customer research platform that transforms how companies understand their users. A seasoned product leader with 14+ years of experience, Ben previously led Growth at Nextdoor, headed Camera Kit at Snap, and scaled Snapchat's growth by 150M+ DAU leading the Growth PM team. Earlier, he held product roles at Apple, Beats Music, and Zynga. Ben studied Economics at Cambridge and attended MIT. Based in LA with his wife and two kids, he's a passionate soccer fan, LEGO collector, and fiercely competitive fantasy Premier League player.

Nicole Zeng is the Head of UX Research at Kalshi, where she leads research shaping the strategy of the company’s prediction markets platform. She brings deep experience in 0–1 product development and has held research leadership roles at some of the most influential technology products, including Robinhood, Kraken, Slack, Airbnb, and Twitter. Nicole studied across McGill University, Columbia University, and UC Berkeley, building a multidisciplinary foundation that informs her research approach.

Marina Lin is a Sr. UX Research Manager at Docusign. With a background in Information Architecture and User Experience Design, Marina has led research teams at Humana and Docusign optimizing user experience and getting to the center of user needs. Her work has previously been published in Smashing Magazine, User Experience Magazine, and Intercom, showcasing her thought leadership in the industry. Marina's passion lies in empowering teams, shaping strategies, and delivering actionable insights for digital excellence.

Seda Pazarbasi is a seasoned insights and analytics leader known for transforming data into meaningful strategies that shape customer experience, brand growth, and organizational decision-making. She currently leads the UX Research team at Delta Air Lines, where she drives human-centered research that informs digital product innovation and enhances the travel experience for customers. With a career spanning global brands and mission-driven organizations, including Meta, The Coca-Cola Company, BBDO, Citibank, and the American Cancer Society, Seda has built and led high-performing teams, delivered complex research programs, and guided strategic initiatives across digital, marketing, brand development, advertising, and product experience. Her expertise lies in harmonizing multi-channel data to understand human behavior and translate insights into actionable strategies and go-to-market plans. Outside of her professional work, Seda is an active community leader. She serves on the Synchronicity Theatre Board and the Georgia State University CIBER Advisory Board, and contributes her time to a variety of cultural and philanthropic initiatives. A native of Turkey, she has made Atlanta her home for more than twenty years, where she enjoys life with her husband, three children, and their energetic puppy.

Jack Bowen is the Co-Founder and CEO of CoLoop, an AI-powered analysis platform for qualitative research. A Y Combinator (S21) alumnus, Jack partners with leading research agencies and Fortune 100 companies to help their insight teams work faster, uncover deeper findings, and deliver smarter, AI-driven insights.

Andrew Seinfeld is Chief Growth Officer at BoltChatAI, where he leads global growth and strategy. With a strong background in the insights industry, he works closely with teams to drive innovation and turn consumer understanding into real business results.

Mamie Dayan Vogel is a CX and UX strategy leader currently working in product strategy and user research at Affirm. With more than 16 years of experience, she helps teams turn research into products, shaping strategies across industries including retail, CPG, telecom, and fintech. Mamie enjoys building things—from research programs to product ideas—and collaborating with cross-functional teams to bring customer insights to life.

Katie Rudnick is a Chicago-based Account Director who has spent the past eight years at Dscout, working on the Customer Success, Research, and Sales teams. Her favorite thing to do at work is help people uncover the way qualitative data powers better business decisions. Her favorite thing to do outside of work is read historical biographies, eat pasta, and hang out with her husband and dog, Gus.

Anahita is a Senior UX Researcher at Google within the Core UX team, where she focuses on integrating Agentic experiences into the daily lives of Googlers. She holds a PhD in Computer Science with a specialization in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from Oregon State University. Before joining Google, Anahita served as an Assistant Professor at the Ohio University College of Business, bridging the gap between academic theory and business application. Her work lives at the intersection of advanced computation and intuitive design, aiming to make AI-driven agency a seamless part of the modern workplace.

Jillian Graver is a Harvard-trained UX researcher and founding insights leader at Listen Labs, where she leads research strategy and activation for enterprise teams including Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, TikTok, and P&G. Her career spans launching Cisco’s first rapid research program, building data experiences used by millions during COVID-19, and now bridging rigorous qualitative research with the scale modern product teams demand.