External Advisory Board

Judd Antin

Consultant, Lecturer

Judd Antin spent almost 15 years as a research, design, and product executive at companies like Yahoo!, Facebook/Meta, and Airbnb. Judd also holds a PhD from UC Berkeley's School of Information, where his area of focus was at the intersection of social psychology and information systems, specifically motivation, trust, and the social psychology of online collaboration. Currently, Judd is an independent consultant, advisor, and writer. He also teaches classes on management & leadership as well as social psychology & information technology at UC Berkeley's School of Information.

Jeremy Barksdale

User Experience Research Manager, Unity Technologies
Councilmember, City of Bellevue

Jeremy Barksdale served on the City of Bellevue's Planning Commission prior to City Council. He now serves on the Board of Directors for Leadership Eastside and Fuse Washington.

Jeremy earned a PhD in Computer Science (with a concentration in HCI) and a master’s in Public Administration from Virginia Tech. He earned a bachelor's degree in Broadcast Production with a minor in Business Administration, and a master of science degree in Computer Science with a concentration in software engineering from North Carolina A&T State University.

Jeremy’s personal interests include volunteering in the community, playing musical instruments, singing, reading, hiking and biking. He lives in south Bellevue.

Adam Drolet

Program Officer, Water & Sanitation, PATH

Adam Drolet is a global public health professional with 15 years of experience advancing policy, research and program design, and implementation on a variety of health topics. His primary expertise is in the WASH sector, where he currently manages global WASH programs at PATH (www.path.org), specializing in WASH in healthcare facility service improvements. Adam has served as a strategic advisor and technical project lead on topics ranging from product development and introduction programs, product and service landscaping, market and technological assessments, consumer and enterprise financing strategies, and user evaluations. He received his Masters of Arts in International Development from the George Washington University.

Gillian Hayes

Vice Provost for Graduate Education & Dean of the Graduate Division, University of California, Irvine
Robert A. & Barbara L. Kleist Professor of Informatics, School of Information and Computer Sciences & School of Education & School of Medicine, University of California, Irvine

Gillian Hayes is the Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate Division at UC Irvine. In my professor life, I am  the Robert A. and Barbara L. Kleist Professor of Informatics in the School of Information and Computer Sciences and in the School of Education and School of Medicine at UC Irvine. Her research interests are in human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, assistive and educational technologies, and health informatics. She and her students and postdocs focus on designing, developing, deploying, and evaluating technologies to empower people to use collected data to address real human needs in sensitive and ethically responsible ways. She co-directs the Jacobs Foundation CERES global network.

Jess Holbrook

Head of UX Research, Microsoft AI

Jess Holbrook has held UX Research leadership roles at Meta, Google, Amazon, and is currently Head of UX Research for Microsoft AI. His focus for the past 10 years has been the UX of AI founding human-centered and responsible AI groups at Google (People + AI Research team) and Meta (Responsible AI team). He cares deeply about how we can responsibly create the best experiences possible with AI. He received his Ph.D in Psychology from the University of Oregon and his B.S. in Psychology from the University of Washington.

Liz Juhnke

Principal Product Designer, The Home Depot

Liz is a Principal Product Designer at The Home Depot with a specialty in designing complex enterprise software. Previously at Boeing, Liz was the Principal Product Designer for the IT Connected Factory team and the founder of the UX Community of Excellence. She holds Boeing Designated Expert Awards in User Experience, Design Thinking, Human Computer Interaction and Software Design and was honored with a Boeing Associate Technical Fellowship in 2021. Liz received one Meritorious Invention Award, one patent and one Innovation Award for software she designed throughout her tenure at Boeing. 

Liz loves teaching user centered design at universities, speaking at conferences and leading experiential workshops (such as the Design-a-thon for social good 2021). She also loves mentoring aspiring UX Designers through the Informatics department (UW), HCDE department (UW), and ADPList. Liz holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Informatics (HCI) from the University of Washington and a Master of Science degree in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University. 

Daniella Kim

Head of Research, Halibut Flats Research & Development

Daniella Kim, PhD, has the privilege of serving as Affiliate Faculty in HCDE and generally teaches each quarter. She currently is serving as the HCDE External Advisory Board Chair. Daniella is also a UX Research manager and research lead in Privacy & Security at Google, leading qualitative research for data consent and data transparency & control experiences. Daniella also is on the Advisory Board of Halibut Flats Research and Development, a small UX research agency based in Seattle which prioritizes projects with social impact. Through Halibut Flats, Daniella serves grant consultant on a number of projects with Fred Hutch Cancer Center, focusing on bringing human-centered design approaches to public health interventions.

Erin McLean

Experience Design Lead for Space Systems Development, Blue Origin

Erin McLean is a design strategist and alumni of the HCDE bachelors program. Her career has spanned hospitality, theme parks, consumer hardware devices, and digital apps. Currently, she is an Experience Design Lead for Space Systems Development at Blue Origin. Her work involves spearheading the design and technical development of astronaut experiences in orbital, lunar, and in-space transport settings. In addition, Erin has built several Accessibility & Inclusive Design programs across her career and participates in the development of design knowledge regarding accessibility solutions in-space.

Dimeji Onafuwa

Principal UX Research Manager, Microsoft

Dr. Dimeji Onafuwa is a researcher, designer, artist, and educator whose interests intersect with transition design, the pluriverse, and enabling better user experiences. He is currently a Principal UX Research Manager at Microsoft. Dimeji earned a Ph.D. in Design from Carnegie Mellon University. While at CMU, his research study sought to understand commons-based approaches to user experience on platforms. During his doctoral study, he worked with different collectives to understand how platforms enable resource negotiation. Dimeji also holds an MBA in management from UNC Charlotte and BAs in design and studio art from Concord University.
 
Dimeji co-founded Common Cause Collective, an interdisciplinary group of designers exploring transition design methodologies for social impact in the Pacific Northwest. He has published papers, written book chapters, delivered several talks & keynote addresses, and led workshops on design's role in social justice. Dimeji's art has been featured in exhibitions at galleries and museums. 

Nicholas Patrick

Vice President & Functional Chief Engineer for Human Factors, Boeing

Dr. Nicholas Patrick is Vice President and Functional Chief Engineer for Human Factors at Boeing. In this role, he leads the company’s efforts to promote human factors as a design discipline, to hire and train Boeing’s future HF workforce, and to create industry-leading practices for human-centered design. He previously worked in Boeing's Flight Deck Design group in the 1990s.
 
Before returning to Boeing in 2024, Dr Patrick was a line pilot flying the 737 for a major US airline. For most of his career, he has worked in operational and design roles in the US space industry. He served 14 years as a NASA astronaut, flying on two shuttle missions during the construction of the International Space Station. He then spent 10 years managing design human factors for a commercial space company, where he also served as a Launch Director for several commercial human space flights. Dr Patrick has a BA in Engineering from the University of Cambridge in the UK, a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. He is a licensed Professional Engineer and a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Kathy Pham

Vice President of Artificial Intelligence, Workday
Senior Advisor, Mozilla

Kathy Pham is a recognized product leader and computer scientist currently serving as the Vice President of Artificial Intelligence at Workday and Senior Advisor at Mozilla. She was recognized as the 2024 ABIE Technical Leadership Award Recipient. Her distinguished tenure in public service includes leadership roles as the inaugural Executive Director of the National AI Advisory Committee, Deputy Chief Technologist at the FTC, and a founding member of the U.S. Digital Service at the White House. Bridging practice and theory, Kathy serves on the faculty at Harvard, where she teaches at both the Kennedy and Business Schools, and founded the Ethical Tech Working Group. She draws on over a decade of experience building large-scale systems at Google, IBM, and Harris Healthcare to drive her expertise at the intersection of technology, ethics, and responsibility. Kathy is deeply committed to fostering ethical engineering cultures. Beyond her professional impact, she serves on various non-profit boards, and is a dedicated grade school soccer and basketball coach.

Sarita Schoenebeck

Professor, School of Information, University of Michigan

Sarita Schoenebeck is a Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. Her research examines computational, social, and policy approaches to creating safer and more equitable experiences online. She is the recipient of the NSF CAREER award and Best Paper and Honorable Mention awards at CHI and CSCW. Her research has been covered in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and elsewhere. She has taught at Michigan and Yale Law Schools and is a Member of the Yale Justice Collaboratory.

Behzod Sirjani

Founder, Yet Another Studio

Behzod Sirjani is a research consultant, advisor, and investor. He founded Yet Another Studio to help people bring more rigor to their curiosity and organizations build better research practices, working with everyone from two person teams up to companies like Figma and Dropbox. He is also an Executive in Residence and Program Partner at Reforge, where he built and leads the User Insights for Product Decisions program, and a Venture Partner at El Cap.

Previously, Behzod led Research Operations at Slack and was a Senior UX Researcher at Facebook, where he co-founded the Research Associates Program. He cares deeply about sharing and teaching the practice of research, and has experience conducting research in consumer and enterprise settings across North America, Europe, and Asia. Behzod earned a MS in Human Centered Design & Engineering from the University of Washington and a BA in Rhetoric & Media Studies from Willamette University.

Carolyn Wei

UX Research Lead, Facebook

Carolyn Wei is a user experience research lead at Facebook. She has previously worked as a user experience researcher for Microsoft and Google. She studies consumers and enterprise users in the lab and in the wild. Carolyn received a PhD from Human Centered Design and Engineering (then known as Technical Communication) at the University of Washington in 2007, where she studied technology use in digitally emergent settings.

Karen Williams

Retired Strategic Operations Executive

Karen Williams is a recognized strategic operations executive with financial expertise and a proven bias for action. She is a change agent known for pioneering new relationships and tactics to deliver desired results from concept testing through scale-up and implementation. Karen builds high performance teams to deliver value and drive measurable sales growth.

Most recently, Karen lead business development and growth initiatives as CEO for Savitude, an AI/ML company offering brand and retail merchandisers a design-led computer vision and analytics platform for best fit and assortment optimization. Prior to that Karen worked for several leading companies in the retail and hospitality space (e.g. Starbucks, Dine Brands and Yum! Brands). 

Throughout her career, Karen has advised senior executives and cross-functional product development and manufacturing teams at a wide array of Fortune 500 companies. She worked with her clients and cross-functional partners to drive maximum value from their project portfolio through strategic planning and process optimization. Her personal goal has been to always keep the human in the equation, from start to finish. 

Karen holds a BS in Product Design, Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.