EXPERIENCE

October 2019 - Present

CO-FOUNDER AND CTO

EXPLORIST, INC.

I co-founded a startup to help travelers find memorable vacation experiences. I conducted extensive qualitative and market research to identify a niche in this space. I was responsible for developing an AI-powered recommendation feature to curate instant personalized travel experiences leveraging SQL databases in an agile framework. Moreover, I created a product roadmap in Jira to drive product development end-to-end. After building a minimum viable product, I conducted user studies and usability testing for product development resulting in a 394% organic user growth. I've successfully pitched this startup alongside my co-founders to Cardinal Ventures, Galvanizer, and Stanford Ignite.

September 2016 - August 2021

PRODUCT DESIGN RESEARCHER 

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

During my PhD I identified actionable insights for designers to drive online purchasing decisions for sustainable products, receiving best paper awards. I developed a natural language processing tool to identify product features perceived as sustainable from crowdsourced annotations of online reviews (e.g. via GloVe, TF-IDF). I conducted multivariate data analyses showing customers resonate 43% more with features perceived as sustainable using kitchen appliances. Moreover, I created hypothesis-driven online surveys and collage experiments (1000+ respondents) to evaluate sustainability requirements and willingness to purchase (e.g., via Qualtrics, Amazon Mechanical Turk). More recently, I designed A/B testing experiments to investigate demand for sustainable products by modifying online product descriptions and designs.

April 2017 - Present

GRADUATE TEACHING ASSISTANT

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

On the technical side I directed graduate students on user-product research projects and quantitative analyses. Moreover, I guided product design capstone projects on engineering, manufacturing, and marketing models to inform product decisions for maximizing profit. On the non-technical side I facilitated panel discussions with 100+ experts and students on diversity in engineering and led executive-level summer boot camps on design thinking, creativity, and innovation.

September 2014 - Present

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE

QATAR FOUNDATION

I work with Qatar Foundation as a fellow in exchange for a full-ride fellowship for my Masters and PhD in the US. As a fellow I worked on projects related to solar energy. On the socio-economic side I developed a Monte-Carlo module that promotes gradual substitution of oil and gas production with solar energy in Qatar. I advised Qatari officials on cost effective energy policies to improve the stability of the economy. On the technical side I developed a thermo-elastic model that approximates thermal stresses in solar cells within 96% accuracy of a finite element model. I presented my findings to the Engineering Graduate Symposium while studying at the University of Michigan.

February 2019 - January 2020

CO-PRESIDENT

ADVANCED DEGREE CANDIDATE CONSULTING CLUB, STANFORD UNIVERSITY

As Co-President I managed a team of six executive board members to support advanced degree candidates interested in consulting. I implemented an outreach initiative that led to a 30% increase in the club size from students across six schools at Stanford. I built relationships with students, career centers, and firms to understand their needs and organize helpful events. I launched the first club-wide survey with a 96% engagement from active members designed to provide valuable insights for both club leadership and campus recruiters.