I help founders, product teams, and investors build AI that actually works for the humans who use it. My work sits at the intersection of UX research, clinical psychology, and AI strategy. That combination is rare. It's also exactly what this moment needs.
My background
Most people who understand products don't understand people. And most people who understand people have never shipped anything.
I've spent the last decade doing both. At Google, Amazon, and JSTOR I ran research inside central intelligence teams, where a well-framed insight can reshape a roadmap. I'm also in clinical training as a psychotherapist (cand.) at Straight Talk Clinic, working with people ages 12 to 72. You learn things about people in a therapy room that no survey, interview, or usability test can touch. Right now I'm watching in real time how AI is changing the people I sit with — new relationships forming with AI companions, shifts in how people think and process, questions about identity and connection that didn't exist five years ago.
Most things fail not because no one needed them, but because they didn't make sense for the people who might have. I close that gap.
Some highlights
Architected Twitch's harassment policy end to end
Triadic interviews with streamers, large-scale chat log analysis with Data Science, synthesized into a harassment framework that became platform policy and moderation tooling.
Reframed data validity as a behavioral problem at Google
Brought in at inception to fix signal quality in Google Panels. Used ethnographic and incentive research to distinguish natural from performative behavior, mapped observer effects across the full user journey, and partnered with design to improve signal fidelity at scale.
Built AI evaluation infrastructure at JSTOR
Created ground truth datasets from SME panels, designed cognitive relevance and task completion testing, directed large-scale conversation log analysis, and translated findings into prioritized model interventions with ML leadership.
Communities & affiliations
For most of human history, cognitive evolution happened to us. Writing changed memory. The printing press changed attention. The calculator changed how we reason. We adapted, but slowly enough to find our footing.
That buffer is gone. For the first time, we have a direct hand in how human cognition evolves — and most of the people making those decisions are thinking about features, not what they're building toward. AI tools are extensions of mind. What gets offloaded, what atrophies, what gets amplified: that shapes who we become.
Builders are making those choices without a map of the territory. Investors are funding outcomes they haven't fully modeled. Users are being changed by tools they don't fully understand. That's what I care about. Not because it's an interesting problem. Because we only get one shot at getting this transition right.
From the research lab and the therapy room. A perspective most builders don't have.
"It's a grave business error to lose connection to your customer's value system."
Emma Grede
How we can work together
Start with a 30-minute conversation: tell me what you're working on and I'll tell you if and how I can help.
Founders & Startups
You have an idea, a product in motion, or a decision with real consequences. I bring the research rigor and strategic instinct to help you move with clarity, before the market tells you what you missed.
Organizations & Research Teams
10+ years running research at Google, Amazon, and JSTOR, across consumer, enterprise, and EdTech. Available for embedded engagements, scoped projects, and contract research work. I integrate fast, operate independently, and deliver synthesis that actually moves decisions.
Investors
You're looking at a company or a product and you want to know if it actually holds up, from a user behavior standpoint and not just a market size standpoint. I give you the research lens most investment processes are missing.
1:1 Coaching
Most coaches have never been inside the environments you're navigating. They'll pathologize the very adaptations that kept you functional. Hyper-focus isn't a disorder. Emotional compartmentalization isn't avoidance. I don't strip that away. I help you hone it and heal around it.
Book a coaching call →Not seeing your thing here?
I'm sure we'll find something. Let's talk →Stay in the loop
Research, musings,
and things worth noticing.
I share insights on AI, human behavior, and product research — the kind of thinking that doesn't fit neatly into a deliverable.
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