Nicole Bonoff

About Nicole Bonoff

Mixed-methods user experience (UX) researcher, social scientist and manager, with a focus on trust and safety issues, government-regulated product spaces, and 0 to 1 products. I am experienced working with businesses and policy-makers to design and implement learning agendas and research roadmaps that help inform strategy.Within tech, I help lead a mix of quantitative and qualitative user and market research. My research informs a range of issues like strategic prioritization and product usability. I also evaluate the impact of product changes on user sentiment and behavior as well as societal-level impacts.I have substantive expertise on developing country-contexts, social media, political communication and behavior, data and digital privacy, safety and integrity, behavioral change, human rights, and democracy and governance issues. My quantitative methodological expertise includes survey design/sampling, advanced statistics, regression/econometrics, data analytics, experimental and quasi-experimental research design, large-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) field experiments, survey and conjoint experiments, panel data, auditing machine learning and AI systems, impact evaluation and performance evaluation. Additionally, I have qualitative research skills in in-depth interviews, elite key informant interviews, focus groups, card sorting, journey mapping, user personas and usability testing. I am proficient in R, SQL, Stata, SPSS, Qualtrics, Quantilope, UserTesting, UserInterviews, dScout, Lookback, Optimal Workshop, Mural, Miro, Lucidspark, Figma, LLMs and agentic AIs (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) for research analysis, and Marvin.

Experience

1. Senior Principal Ux Researcher

   Ethos

   Jan 2026 — Present

Education

• UC San Diego

  Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and Master of Arts (MA), Political Science

  2007 — 2015

• Stanford University

  Bachelor of Science (BS) and Bachelor of Arts (BA), Earth Systems (Environmental Sciences) and Political Science; Minor in Economics

  2003 — 2007

Skills

• Development Agency
• Surveying
• Politics
• Qualitative Research
• Quantative Research
• Evaluation
• Economic Data Analysis
• Behavior Social Science
• Program Evaluation
• Latin America
• Data Analytics
• Research
• Impact Assessment
• Focus Groups
• Stata
• International Research
• Nonprofits
• International Relations
• Survey Research
• Statistics
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• Political Science
• Econometrics
• Quantative Analysis
• Public Policy
• Impact Evaluation
• Governance
• Policy Analysis
• Probability
• Experimental Social Science
• Statistical Data Analysis
• Foreign Assistance Program Design
• Research Design
• Policy
• Data Analysis
• Public Speaking
• Survey Design
• Experimental Design