Non-Academic Careers Speaker Series

Sponsored by the Psychological & Brain Sciences Alumni Council

To support people who are interested in pursuing careers outside academia, we invited alumni working in the industry to share their experiences. The alumni are from various companies with various roles. Each session is about one hour long, starting with a presentation and ending with Q&A. We hope this speaker series is helpful to you.

These videos are only accessible to people with a UCSB NetID.

Phillip Ehret

Phil is a senior research analyst at CoBro Consulting and a research advisory council member at WGU Labs. He also has experience doing private consulting. Prior to working in the industry, Phil was a Postdoc at University of Southern California.

You can view Phil's video on Gauchocast

Deborah Ko

Debbie is an user experience consultant, digital researcher, and public speaker who currently works at Google in Singapore. Prior to joining Google, she was the head of research at PALO IT and a digital psychologist at Reading Room.

You can view Debbie's video on Gauchocast

(Please email Heejung Kim using your UCSB email for permission to access this video.)

Roxie Chuang

Roxie is a 4th year psychology grad student and will begin working as a user experience researcher later this year. In her presentation, Roxie discussed quantitative user experience research — the relevant skills and projects. She also shared her experience applying for user experience internships and interning at Facebook.

You can view Roxie's video on Gauchocast

Kevin Lominac

Kevin is currently a scientific curator at the Jackson Laboratory. He was a technical information scientist at the Jackson for two years. Prior to joining the Jackson, Kevin was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. Kevin worked with Karen Szumlinski and graduated from UCSB in 2012.

You can view Kevin's video on Gauchocast

Peri Gunalp

Peri is an applied cognitive scientist at Pacific Science and Engineering. Her main line of research in graduate school focused on perspective taking, and examined how different directional cues, including social cues, facilitate this process. She worked with Mary Hegarty and graduated from UCSB in 2020.

You can view Peri's video on Gauchocast

 

Wesley Moons

Wesley is the founder and CEO of Cortex Science, a marketing research and strategy firm. He is also a marketing lecturer at UCLA's Anderson School of Management. Prior to founding Cortex Science, Wesley was an assistant professor at UC Davis. He worked with Diane Mackie and graduated from UCSB in 2008.

You can view Wesley's video on Gauchocast

Ryan Phillips

Ryan is a data scientist at LinkedIn. Prior to joining LinkedIn, he was a data scientist at RemindHQ, and interned at Insight Data Science. He studied Neuroscience in grad school and graduated from UC Davis in 2018. LinkedIn has been the most commonly discussed networking tool throughout the series, so this could be a great opportunity to learn more about it.

You can view Wesley's video on Gauchocast

Jocelyn Sy

Jocelyn is a quantitative UX researcher at Google. Prior to joining Google, she was a senior data scientist and quantitative researcher at Pearson. Before working in the industry, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Vanderbilt University  She worked with Barry Giesbrecht and graduated from UCSB in 2011.

You can view Jocelyn's video on Gauchocast