EPIC People

Rick E. Robinson is an interdisciplinary social scientist by way of his training at the University of Chicago's Committee on Human Development. Of his many accomplishments, he is well known for co-founding E-Lab, his time as CXO at Sapient and for giving the first keynote at the first EPIC Conference EPIC in Redmond, Washington in 2005, under the theme "Sociality".  Tony Salvador is...

Rick E. Robinson is an interdisciplinary social scientist by way of his training at the University of Chicago's Committee on Human Development. Of his many accomplishments, he is well known for co-founding E-Lab, his time as CXO at Sapient and for giving the first keynote at the first EPIC Conference EPIC in Redmond, Washington in 2005, under the theme "Sociality".  Tony Salvador is...

John Payne is Head of Design at Public Policy Lab and Associate Professor of Practice at the Institute of Design (ID) in Chicago, where he developed a series of courses describing a Post-Human-Centered Design approach. In 2002 he co-founded Moment, one of the first digital design firms on the East Coast. John co-chaired EPIC in 2012 alongside Simon Roberts. John describes the theme of "Renewa...

Dr. Erin B. Taylor is Director and Co-Founder of Finthropology, at the crossroads of anthropology, financial behavior and technology. She specializes in how people’s financial behavior is changing along with innovation in financial services. She holds a PhD from the University of Sydney, Australia, and has carried out ethnographic research in the Caribbean, Africa and Europe. Erin is especially in...

Martha Cotton is Managing Director with the Design group at JPMorgan Chase, serving as UX research lead for Chase's consumer lending business, and adjunct faculty at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Prior to JPMC, she was Managing Director at Fjord/Accenture Interactive, and Partner at gravitytank.  Martha co-chaired two EPIC conferences back-to-back: in 2008 with...

Melissa Cefkin is an anthropologist at the crossroads of technology, business and mobility. She developed autonomous vehicle behavior and features at Waymo, initiated and led the Human Systems Lab at Nissan, and has held research and innovation roles at IBM and Sapient. Melissa co-chaired EPIC in 2007 ("Being Heard") and 2008 ("Being Seen"). Taking place during the early days o...

Jan English Lueck is a Professor of Anthropology at San José State University and a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Future. Jan was co-chair of Epic 2021, which had the theme of Anticipation.  With the backdrop of COVID-19 forcing a quick pivot to an online format, Jan discusses the goal of the 2021 conference in bringing an intentional futures perspective to the practitioners and ac...

Tracy Lovejoy is founded the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (also known as EPIC) alongside Ken Anderson and chaired the first two conferences in 2005 and 2006. Tracey is a Coach that supports Catalysts and their teams, and is the Researcher behind the book Move Fast. Break Shit. Burn Out. Before she became a Coach, Tracey spent 12 years at Microsoft, where she worked at the intersectio...

As Partner at Practica, Rita Denny, Ph. D. applies an anthropological framework to consumer behavior across the globe, calling on linguistic, semiotic and symbolic traditions for interpreting attitudes, perceptions and practices. Rita’s work supports strategic development of products, services and brands as well as communications strategies for Fortune Global 500 companies, government agencies and...

Simon Roberts is widely regarded as a pioneer in the field of anthropology in business and the use of ethnography, in particular, in corporate research, design, and innovation. Simon is a Partner at Stripe Partners, which he co-founded in 2015. Simon reflects on the organic production of themes for EPIC 2013, which he chaired. He celebrates the presentation by David Howes, which centers sensation...

Dawn Nafus is an anthropologist with skills in responsible AI governance and the sustainability of ML systems. As Principal Engineer and Sociotechnical Systems Research Manager at Intel, she leads an interdisciplinary team of social scientists who inform engineering research and development, with an emphasis on machine learning. Chairing EPIC 2018 in Honolulu, Dawn selected the theme "Evidenc...

Marta Cuciurean-Zapan is a design researcher and Senior Director based in IDEO’s Chicago studio. She is focused on building innovative research approaches, futures perspectives, and the intersection of content, belonging, and culture in teamwork. Kicking off season one of the EPIC People podcast, Marta reflects on EPIC 2023 in Chicago, focused around the theme of “Friction”, which she co-chaired w...