Zachary Lamm

About Zachary Lamm

I’m a user research leader who turns data into powerful insights that help perfect designs and push product innovation, with experience in organizations of all sizes. Partnering with cross-functional partners across organizations, I help develop research strategies that bring to light the needs and behaviors of users for product managers, product designers, content strategists, product marketers, and various other potential stakeholders. I have a decade of qualitative and quantitative experience, employing methodologies including in-depth interviews, usability and concept testing, ethnography, user personas and journeys, heuristic evaluations, UX benchmarking, and surveys of all types (NPS, CSAT, ad hoc, etc.) – as well as custom approaches I’ve developed over time. I think of myself as a qualitative superhero, bringing both excitement and depth of insight to interviews, and turning data into insights that provide not only product feedback and recommendations but also larger frameworks for understanding users.My background includes teaching, writing, and publishing. I have functionally acted as a team editor as well as aiding in democratizing research, helping partners in other disciplines learn about UX research and helping them to conduct their own studies.I have worked as both a lone researcher, building the practice within an organization, and as a leader within larger, more mature teams, helping to build research roadmaps and mentoring researchers as they develop in their career. I am comfortable with and excited to evangelize research and to help lead and build the research function.

Experience

1. Ux Research Lead

   Cigna Healthcare

   Dec 2023 — Present · San Francisco, CA, US

   Lead researcher for Colleague Experiences and Communications & Artificial Intelligence Converted from contractor to full-time employee before end of initial contract. Artificial Intelligence strategy leader and researcher for internal best practices, education, and innovation of workServed as team leader during 6-month manager parental leave. Leading multiphase discovery research program to improve the technology onboarding process for new hires; resulted in a research-led product initiative to develop new experiences and tools to ease and speed transitions to work, resulting in multiple company OKRs. Developing a company-wide internal software pilot program to improve the quality of feedback during pilots and overall program efficacy. Serving as a product and project lead for new internally-developed software to monitor device help and keep employee devices compliant and up-to-date. Mapped experiences for onboarding colleagues to new tech platforms during system migration in order to identify experience gaps and make process recommendations. Coordinated cross-team, multi-stage exploratory and testing program for company-wide re-platforming effort to enable cross-company sharing and ease of implementation for new acquisitions.

Education

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Certificate, Artificial Intelligence

• University of Alabama at Birmingham

  B.A., English

• Loyola University Chicago

  Ph.D., English

Skills

• Teaching
• American Literature
• Public Speaking
• Mentoring
• Theory
• Qualitative Research
• Student Affairs
• Literary Theory
• Qualtrics
• Management
• Ethnography
• Literature
• Survey Research
• Tutoring
• Research
• Student Development
• Literary Criticism
• Social Media
• Academia
• Research Design
• Academic Writing
• Survey Design
• Academic Advising
• Usability Testing
• Competitive Analysis
• African American Literature
• Higher Education
• Gender Studies
• Editing
• Journalism
• Microsoft Office
• History
• Institutional Research
• Higher Education Administration
• Remote User Testing
• German
• Writing
• College Teaching
• Voice of the Customer Analysis
• University Teaching