A woman with red hair wearing a black top and beige sleeves delivers a presentation on stage with blue lighting in the background.
A woman is on a stage in a studio or event space with a brick wall background. The scene includes lighting and camera equipment, as well as a control panel in the foreground.
Presentation slide discussing two ways meaning gets lost: Structure and Culture. Structure involves phonetics, grammar, and syntax break, leading to meaning collapse. Culture involves words surviving, but nuance and texture disappear. A woman in a bl
A woman with red hair, wearing a dark top and patterned pants, is holding a microphone and speaking during an event or discussion.
A view of a conference room showing people seated and a large screen displaying a United Nations event at Geneva Winter Summit, with the focus on a camera monitor capturing a panel including a woman in black sitting at a desk with a nameplate reading
A woman with red hair and an olive green shirt speaking into a microphone during a meeting or conference, with blurred people and floral arrangements in the background.
A woman with long blonde hair, wearing a sleeveless black dress, holding a notepad and speaking on stage in front of a large screen. The screen displays a presentation slide titled 'Ethnographic LLM Research in Africa' with a decorative border and pa

Speaking

I speak at international conferences, symposia, and closed-door forums about the cultural and linguistic implications of emerging technology (all things AI), the future of research in a technology-driven world, and the complexities of building systems for global audiences. My work examines how cultures, languages, and power shape technological systems, research practice, and decision-making at scale, and how those systems in turn shape people’s lives.

Drawing from hands-on experience as a research leader bridging academia and industry, a professional translator, and an interpretive scientist, I deliver insights grounded in real-world complexity. I’ve lived and worked on three continents, led global UX research programs across more than 30 markets as a Director at Bold Insight, and spent over a decade working professionally across languages, with deep roots in East Asia. I use concrete, often surprising, stories and carefully chosen examples from this work to make complex systems legible and navigable.

My talks combine rigor, creativity, and clarity, pairing empirical findings with practical frameworks leaders and practitioners can apply in their own contexts. I focus on how assumptions travel across regions, how meaning shifts across languages, and how research and AI workflows behave under real-world constraints. Audiences leave better equipped to make decisions about research design, AI adoption, and global strategy in environments shaped by scale, uncertainty, and cultural difference.

What People Say

Our keynote was exceptionally well-received…As one attendee put it, “The keynote speaker had a simple yet powerful framework that was compelling and inspiring.”

—Katie Wainwright, Staff UX Researcher and UX team lead, Google

GUACfest 2025 Google UX for All Conference logo with avocado icon on a green background, surrounded by line art icons representing various concepts.