About

From Researching Academic to UX Researcher

Humans learn best through stories. This is mine! I am a UX researcher and cultural anthropologist with over 10 years of qualitative research experience in multiple industries (academic, non-profit, and corporate), countries (South Korea and the United Arab Emirates), & regions (the American West, Midwest, and South).

In my previous role as an academic researcher, I designed and strategized end-to-end research projects in independent and collaborative environments. Working closely with diverse stakeholders, I conducted local and international field studies. I also maximized user learning experiences via adaptive UX research and iterative design.

“Anthropology is the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities.”

-Alfred Louis Kroeber (U.S. American Cultural Anthropologist)

Impact via Ethnography & Qualitative Methods

3 traits have inspired me to pivot from social scientist to UX researcher: curiosity, resourcefulness, and empathy.

As the son of first-generation Korean American immigrants, I have always been curious about how diverse people interact and make sense of their experiences. Early in my life, I channeled this curiosity by traveling the world and publishing stories about everyday people.

In college, as a study abroad student, I conducted a university-funded, independent research project on Filipina/o workers in Italy. Sparking my initial passion for interacting with different people, I realized the essential role of technology in mediating people’s lives across borders. Operating in Italy trained me always to be resourceful like recruiting participants and maintaining rapport in a foreign country—often in a foreign language. I continued to draw on this quality during later life transitions, such as a living in Seoul and Dubai as a Korean American or working in the Midwest and South as a native Californian.

After university, as a freelance journalist for multiple publications, I wrote stories about people’s distinct behaviors and lifestyles. Similar to connecting with my earlier research participants, I empathized with the people I wrote about, as well as my readers to produce writing that was accessible but insightful.

Ultimately, these formative events led to my successful completion of a PhD in Cultural Anthropology. As a part of this program, I designed and administered an award-winning, 18-month ethnographic field research project on the aviation industry, human choice, and travel technologies in South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.

Field Studies on Work and Aviation

Methodological Rigor & Human-Centered Strategies through Anthropology

As a trained anthropologist, I have worked extensively in cross-cultural, international settings. I have conducted complex research on and built meaningful relationships with populations as varied as Dubai-based construction workers and aspiring Korean flight attendants. Topics have ranged from the changing nature of customer service to how people relate to technology and travel.

I bring a uniquely anthropological approach to foundational UX research methods. I decipher the subtle difference between what people say and what they do. Applying anthropological hallmarks like rapport building, rich contextualization, and theoretical rigor to common UX methods, I translate dense data into clear, actionable insights.

My background as a qualitative researcher and published writer has resulted in over $40,000 in research grants and 10 peer-reviewed publications. In addition, during my PhD training, I transcribed over 80 semi-structured interviews and coordinated over 1,000 hours of participant observation.

What I Bring to UX Research

UX’s emphasis on proactively finding solutions to everyday human problems resonates with my core values of curiosity, resourcefulness, and empathy. Gaining understanding of user pain points requires planning, patience, and persistence. At the same time, endless empathy is required to appreciate the diversity of each user and their unique challenges. Collectively, I apply these longstanding values to generate research insights that fuel user satisfaction and company profitability.

My prior role as an academic made me appreciate how people approached their daily lives, including technology’s central role within these processes. UX’s emphasis on improving human experience through direct observation, iterative design, and collaboration speak to my passion for improving lives through cutting-edge theory and real-world practice. Leveraging my creativity with analytic skills, strategic thinking, and empathy, I seamlessly bridge the evolving needs of stakeholders and users.

Testimonials

“Alex has an extremely active, inquisitive and creative mind — one that thrives on challenges, enjoys complexity, and appreciates subtlety. He is careful, well-organized and insightful, with broad and eclectic interests, and a generous intellectual spirit… Alex is friendly, well-rounded, sensible, and capable of getting along with a wide variety of people without sacrificing either his principles or his point of view. Moreover, he has a clear sensitivity to, and appreciation of, all people and cultures. He is extremely open-minded and engagingly cosmopolitan… Based on Alex’s background and scholarly interests, it is clear to me that he would be able to bring his multi-interdisciplinary, interregional, and transnational expertise into productive conversation with any number of departments and programs.

"Alex is a well-traveled, experienced researcher, teacher, writer, and researcher. He has a unique understanding of issues in a truly globalized context. Antithetical to a simplistic data processor, Alex is always attuned to the human side in the information and data that he sees, knowing the nuances and market implications in them.”

—GORDON CHANG (WESTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY)