Now available: Human-Centered Security by Heidi Trost!
Holly Cole
Senior User Research Analyst, iCIMS, Scholarship Judge

I was born in Texas, dropped out of high school and was a neo-hippie for a good while, eventually went to the University of North Texas and got a degree in Sculpture. Worked in oil and gas and marketing for years. Got involved in the Applied Design Research graduate program at UNT and haven’t looked back. User research is the only thing that doesn’t get boring, that doesn’t get old. People are fascinating and I never get tired of watching and observing people interacting with each other. Right now, I work for a company called iCIMS, the second-largest applicant tracking system in the US and its growing so fast we can barely keep up with the amount of research ideas – much less the amount of research data and insights we need to generate.

The most valuable information I can think of about myself is a story about an older friend on a fixed income. She grew up with a pen pal in Australia and has always dreamed of visiting. Posted about it online regularly. So, I sent her there for six weeks a couple of years ago. I’m not a kid from Texas and North Carolina with a huge family. I’m not an artist. I’m not a researcher who has worked for research teams, product teams, marketing teams, and design teams. I’m someone who thinks it’s important to make dreams come true.

Sessions by Speaker
Panel Discussion: Growing People and Teams
Thursday, November 8, 2018 | 10:50am - 11:20am
Understanding Experiences: When you have to do more than work
Thursday, November 8, 2018 | 9:20am - 9:40am