Jillian GRAVER, UXR

CAREER SUMMARY

I have 3+ years of mixed-methods UX research experience in the technology sector, focusing on balancing speed and data quality to deliver engaging, accessible products. I'm especially skilled at applying behavioral science principles to strategy and design, and implementing new research methodologies to my teams.

Most recently I was on Cisco Systems' Experience Management & Insights team, leading research efforts on Cisco.com and Cisco Community, impacting over 5M monthly visitors. In my role, I aimed to give customers a voice by conducting quick, robust research and applying behavioral economics principles to unify the experience across Cisco's $53B+ product and service portfolio. In addition to leading 20+ unique research projects, I defined and implemented two new methodologies for our team, Rapid Research and Behavioral Design Audits.

I took a gap year from Harvard during the pandemic and spent that time working with a tech startup called the Act Now Project, which aims to solve social problems through data. As a User Research Analyst, I led research projects and collaborated with the design and strategy teams and acted as a user consultant, ensuring our COVID and climate change data tools were accessible and user-friendly for all. 

EDUCATION SUMMARY

I received a bachelor's degree in psychology with honors from Harvard University in 2023, returning after a gap year taken during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During college, I gained over 2 years of academic research experience in various labs, including a dual posting as a research assistant in Daniel Gilbert's lab and at Harvard Business School working on research related to prevalence-induced concept change in human judgement. 

Before that, I worked as a project manager and research assistant in the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory at the Harvard Kennedy School. There, I designed and executed in-lab, guerrilla, and remote behavioral economics experiments with industry-leading researchers. I also helped expand the lab's participant pool to over 20,000 (+25%) through psychology-driven marketing initiatives, making it the largest lab pool in the US. Together with lab leadership, we defined and implemented our remote research strategy in under two weeks in the face of the pandemic.

During university, I served on the leadership committee of Harvard's Behavioral Insights Student Group, helping organize and publicize events including our annual behavioral science career expo, the first ever Harvard-wide Nudge-A-Thon, and moderating a talk with Cass Sunstein. I also managed the Behavioral Insights Group Twitter account (@HarvardBIG), creating content and sharing it with our 16k followers.