CONTACT:
EMILY KOBROFF
I'm a New Yorker, born and raised. Now I'm a Senior UX Researcher based in Austin, TX, with 9+ years of experience leading research across complex, data-driven products.
Curiosity and empathy sit at the center of how I work — for the people I'm researching, the teams I work alongside, and the researchers I mentor. That's what makes user research exciting to me: understanding how people think and make decisions, then shaping that understanding into something a team can actually act on. When leadership calls on me to present a readout to new audiences, even months later, that's the kind of impact I chase.
That impact mindset goes back further than my current role. Before getting my master's degree — in Information Studies at the University of Texas at Austin's iSchool — I worked in market research, where the opportunity to sleuth and collect data ultimately shaped my career trajectory. The work I've done since has grown from understanding individual end users to leading research that shapes product roadmaps for entire organizations — including using AI responsibly to help synthesize and communicate what that research finds. I've honed those research and design skills through a multitude of techniques, always in service of the same goal: efficiency and precision that teams can trust.
That instinct for efficiency was cultivated early in my career, when I worked as a UX designer — building wireframes and prototypes. While I don't design anymore, that hands-on experience shapes how I scope research today: I know exactly what a design team needs to act on findings, not just hear them. It's part of why teams have brought me in to mentor their designers directly, not just their researchers.
When I'm not in the field, a lab, or my home doing user research you can find me hosting a bi-monthly UX Research happy hour for Austinites and central Texans, pulling on plastic at Austin Bouldering Project, or feeding the neighborhood’s feral cats.