Pursuing a PhD - Trust in Human-Robot Interaction with Umesh Krishnamurthy

​Topic: Trust in human-robot interaction. The central question is whether a robot's appearance changes how much people trust it. The starting point is the "uncanny valley" idea: people like robots more as they look more human, until they look almost human and becFrom PhD to UX Research: Trust, AI, and Building a Career in Industry

​Should you get a PhD? And if you have one, how do you turn it into a career in UX?

​Join UX researcher Umesh Krishnamurthy, Ph.D. for a candid talk on both. Umesh earned his PhD in Cognitive Science at UC Merced, where his dissertation asked a question that gets more relevant every year: what makes people trust a robot? He went on to do UX research at Google and NASA Ames, so he's seen both sides of the academia-to-industry divide.

​What we'll cover

• ​How Umesh found his way into UX, and what the PhD was really like

• ​Choosing the right program and balancing passion for research with practical realities

• ​Building relationships with professors and peers

• ​Academic vs. industry research, and how to sell your PhD work in interviews

• ​How AI is changing UX now, and where it's headed in the next few years

• ​His dissertation on trust in human-robot interaction

​Who this is for

​Students weighing grad school, researchers eyeing a move to industry, and anyone curious about where UX and AI are headed.

​Bring your questions. There'll be plenty of time for Q&A.