Brad Jacobson
Head of Data, Engineering, and VoteShield at Protect Democracy
January 29, 2026
4:30 P.M. – 5:20 P.M.
Sieg Building, room 134
What happens when you’re not designing for profit?
Brad started his career at a New York agency where the goals felt familiar: good design that led to impressions, conversions, retention, etc. He made the change to a non-profit unfamiliar with building tech, and where a lot of the traditional goals became inverted. He’ll take you on his journey of using the HCDE approach in the products he’s built, and how he used the same tools to build a culture of tech enabled solutions at Protect Democracy.
Brad Jacobson (HCDE MS '14) is the Head of Data, Engineering, and VoteShield at Protect Democracy. He leads a team of engineers and data scientists to support our mission of preventing the United States from declining into a more authoritarian form of government. Prior to Protect Democracy, he worked at R/GA where he lead experience design projects for clients like Nike, Verizon, and Samsung. He received his M.S. from HCDE in 2014, when he also played for recently crowned National Champions - UW Mens Soccer team - Go Dawgs!
The UX Speaker Series is hosted Thursdays in winter quarter by the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. Presentations are open to the public.
Depending on the speaker's preference, a recording will be posted to this webpage after the event. View the full schedule at hcde.uw.edu/ux.