Each winter, the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering welcomes designers, researchers, and technology leaders to campus for a 10-week UX Speaker Series. Join us on Thursday afternoons to hear how industry experts are shaping the future of user experience across sectors.
2026 UX Speaker Series
Thursdays, Winter Quarter
January 8 – March 12
4:30 – 5:20 p.m.
Sieg Building, room 134
All events are free and open to the public. Talk details and recordings will be posted here as they are available throughout the quarter.
January 8
Liz Juhnke
UX Principal Designer, Home Depot
January 15
Eva Snee
Director of User Experience, Databricks
January 22
Sena Janky
UX Manager, Fluke
January 29
Brad Jacobson
Head of Data, Engineering, and VoteShield, Protect Democracy
February 5
Julie Zhuying Novak
Staff UX Manager, Gemini, AI Security, Google
February 12
Nicole Washington
Product Designer II, Xbox
February 19
Senior Manager, User Experience Research, Expedia (Yuan Zhuang)
User Experience Researcher, Expedia (Rajiv Pennathur)
Thriving in a Changing World
February 26
Dr. Matt Klenk & Dr. Matt Hong
Director, Future Product Innovation (HCAI), Toyota (Matt Klenk)
Senior Research Scientist, Toyota (Matt Hong)
March 5
Carolyn Wei
UX Research Lead, Instagram, Meta
March 12
Jess Hollbrook & Mike Davidson
Head of UX Research, Microsoft AI (Jess Hollbrook)
Corporate VP, Design & User Research, Microsoft AI (Mike Davidson)
