UX Speaker Series

March 12, 2026
4:30 – 5:20 P.M.
Sieg Building, room 134

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About the presenters

Jess Holbrook has spent the last 12 years researching how people's lives can be meaningfully improved with AI at Google, Meta, and now Microsoft where he leads UX Research for the Microsoft AI team. Prior to that, he was Director of UX Research for Generative AI and Responsible AI at Meta. He got his start in human-AI research at Google where he was a founder and lead of Google’s People + AI Research group (PAIR). His research interests range from applied product work to steering AI model behaviors to creating tools for thought to community-based research practices. He received his Ph.D in Psychology from the University of Oregon (sorry) and a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Washington (Go Dawgs!).

Mike Davidson is Corporate Vice President of Design & User Research at Microsoft AI. He is primarily responsible for making sure the experiences we build for our customers exhibit a level of craft and consideration that far exceeds their expectations. Mike’s career began in print design where he worked with the NFL, NBA, and other major sports leagues. He then transitioned to digital media at ESPN, Disney, Twitter, and his own journalism startup, Newsvine, which was acquired by MSNBC. Along the way, Mike was responsible for several notable breakthroughs, including architecting the first CSS-based redesign for a major media property and inventing the first accessible technology to use custom fonts in web browsers. Mike earned a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Washington and studied Creative Advertising and Management at the University of Oxford. He still pushes pixels and writes "designer level" code on a weekly basis 😬. Ask him about showerheads, laceless shoes, or the Galapagos Islands.