Industry Research

In tech, I have demonstrated impact and experience in:

• Designing products that meet Gen Z’s modern information needs

• Evaluating the role of GenAI in information seeking journeys

• Understanding the user generated content ecosystem from the creator and consumer perspective

• Improving ads and business products for enterprise consumers

My breadth of qualitative and quantitative research skills includes:

Diary Studies, Usability Testing, Subject Matter Expert Interviews, Focus Groups, Unmoderated Testing at Scale, End-to-End Evaluation, Card Sorting, Journey Mapping, Participatory Design, Competitive Tracking, Surveys.

I translate my passion for people when working with cross-functional stakeholders including product management, engineering, design, and data science partners. I am committed to presenting research findings to stakeholders in both a rigorous and fast-turnaround manner to influence product roadmaps and design direction.

Graduate Research

In graduate school, I directed four multi-year research programs focused on designing and enacting equity across design settings.

I led research focused on bringing virtual reality to incarcerated youth, understanding how dyads of families conduct online search and brokering, and iterating HCI curriculum for a Master’s program. I published papers in highest impact HCI journals (ACM, CHI, DIS) and earned top 1% recognition on multiple papers:

• Roldan, W., Lee, K.J., Berhe, L., Nguyen, K., Strickler, S., Yip, J.C. (2021) Disrupting Informal Computing Education: Teen-led Co-design in Libraries. ACM Transactions on Computing Education.

• Roldan, W., Li, Z., Gao, X., Strickler, S.K., Hishikawa, A.M., Froehlich, J., & Yip, J.C. (2021). Pedagogical Strategies for Reflection in Project-based HCI Education with End Users. Proceedings of the 2021 Designing Interactive Systems Conference.

• Roldan, W., Gao, X., Hishikawa, A.M., Ku, T., Li, Z., Zhang, E., Froehlich, J., & Yip, J.C. (2020). Opportunities and Challenges in Involving Users in Project Based HCI Education.

• Vossoughi, S., Jackson, A., Chen, S., Roldan, W., & Escudé, M. (2020). Embodied Pathways and Ethical Trails: Studying Learning in and Through Relational Histories. Journal of the Learning Sciences.

• Roldan, W., Vanegas, P., Pina, L., Gonzalez, C., & Yip, J.C. (2019). The Role of Funds of Knowledge in Online Search and Brokering. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) 2019, Volume 1 (pp. 160-167). International Society of the Learning Sciences.

• Pina, L., Gonzalez, C., Nieto, C., Roldan, W., Onofre, E., & Yip, J.C. (2018). How Latino Children in the U.S. Engage in Collaborative Online Information Problem Solving with their Families. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW).

• Roldan, W., Hui, J., Gerber, E. (2018). University Makerspaces: Opportunities to Support Equitable Participation for Women in Engineering. International Journal of Engineering Education.