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Sam Alper

PhD

Director

Sam’s background in human factors and industrial engineering has led to a systematic approach to problem solving, which considers both the technical and social aspects of challenges, that he applies to each project. He spent the better part of a decade investigating accidents from a human factors perspective, presenting to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and being deposed as an expert witness. Sam has a deep research background and has developed and implemented qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. Sam as a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

Bold facts

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Sam

Something unique about you summed up in one sentence:

Pretty sure I’m the only one in the office who can juggle 5 objects.

Your favorite part of working at Bold Insight:

The goal of our work is to make life easier and/or better for people. While maintaining scientific rigor, we make sure to have fun. From top to bottom, each team member wants each of the others to succeed.

In your spare time (or if you had spare time), you would absolutely do this:

I already play hockey. But given spare time in the right location, I’d love to do more SCUBA.

How long have you been in the UX field?

Tangentially, for almost a decade. As a primary focus, for over three years.

Your favorite city in the world is...and why?

Madison, WI. After going to school there for 10 years, I fell in love with the city.

Your ultimate celebrity dinner party guest list would include:

The Dalai Lama for his presence in the moment and his joyfulness. Pope Francis for his thoughts on culture change and helping a group adapt to a new environment. Barack Obama for his ability to stay on message through adversity, even when it put him at a disadvantage. Ellen DeGeneres for her ability to do good with humor.

Long-term personal or professional goal?

I’m curious about whether, and how, we could apply user experience principles to jobs– I think there’s potential to do a lot of good by improving peoples’ experiences at work.

Any other facts to share?

I’m an expert! At least, I have testified as an expert witness in the field of human factors and no one has disputed my expertise.

Read Sam's bold insights

Read our team’s latest bold insights

When it comes to voice print UX, what is our role as researchers?

Oct 30, 2018

During a recent study, we asked participants how long they thought they would have to speak in order for their voice to be uniquely recognized (i.e., voice print). While their estimates varied widely - from 30 seconds to 30 minutes - most people said about three to...

UX principles for robot design: Have we begun to baseline?

Oct 5, 2018

As the robotics industry continues to find its way into our lives, we can begin to identify UX design principles to apply to this tech to increase the acceptance of robots and improve the human-robot interaction experience.

AI benefits from GPU, not CPU advancements

Sep 21, 2018

A quick follow-up to our blog posts about AI… The name of the game is no longer Moore's Law where we see processors getting exponentially faster. AI technology is driven not by computing processes of the past, but from an evolution beyond central processing unit (CPU)...