Accompanied my husband on his sabbatical. I spent the summer walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain, hiking through the Scottish Highlands, exploring the rich history of Türkiye, and spending precious time with family and friends.

Key contributor to a new usability benchmarking program for the Instacart consumer grocery app, identifying 40+ issues across mobile and web platforms.• Co-led 60 moderated benchmarking interviews with customers to inform product roadmaps and improve user experience.• Piloted new approaches to usability benchmarking, tracking metrics such as success and error rate, while providing stakeholders with direct exposure to live app customer experiences.

Conducted research on Caper Cart, an AI-powered smart grocery cart, improving education and onboarding, grocery retailer tools, consumer packaged goods (CPG) ad placement, cart usability (both software and hardware), and in-store operations.• Investigated how consumers learn to use Caper Cart, an AI-powered smart grocery cart, with two qualitative studies, driving 5+ tactical and strategic projects, improving new user education, clarity of produce item add flows, and more.• Conducted field research at product launch sites that contributed to significant product decisions, including the development of a dedicated checkout lane for Caper Cart consumers, improving adoption and customer satisfaction.• Optimized ad content type and information architecture of the Caper Cart screen through early stage concept and usability testing, presented research-backed proposals to leadership.• Influenced the product direction of a Caper Cart purchase audit tool used by grocery store associates through observational field research and usability testing.

Led research for three product teams building point-of-sale systems for the physical stores technology organization. The physical stores team, including my role, was significantly impacted by layoffs in Q1 2023.• Informed 10+ early stage product decisions for Amazon Fresh traditional self-checkout through four formative studies alongside design, product, and content. Introduced accessibility considerations through primary and secondary research.• Drove research requirements for an exploratory study on a new point-of-sale opportunities for third party retailers, directly informing the early stage business strategy with new insights about customer needs.

Conducted 30+ studies for service professional (e.g. plumbers) and homeowner teams that informed cross-marketplace strategy and design, using methods ranging from contextual inquiries to usability evaluations.• Prioritized features for a new homeowner membership product launch through MaxDiff and Kano Method surveys, triangulated with past foundational research.• Launched a job cost estimate tool for local service professionals that originated with a previous recommendation from a foundational study.• Increased lead conversion and revenue by improving how service professionals share their travel preferences for jobs with Thumbtack through close collaboration with design, product, data, and engineering.• Developed a company-wide user research training program for 250+ employees, improving research literacy across the organization and empowering teams to conduct their own evaluative research with guidance from the research team.

Developed a new borrower-facing feature for ApplePie Capital's internal platform by conducting research, gathering product requirements, designing UX flows, and writing tickets for engineers.

Drove research for the traveler and hotelier experiences at Hotwire using a variety of methods, including in-depth interviews, contextual inquiries, surveys, card sorting, and unmoderated testing.