The best conversations at a research conference don’t happen on stage. They happen in the hallways, right after a session, when someone’s still thinking out loud. Waves of Thinking is our attempt to capture that—short, unfiltered interviews with the researchers and strategists shaping the future of consumer insights, recorded live from the floor at Learners Research Week 2026 in San Francisco. Here’s everything from our time there.
Kicking off Waves of Thinking — Molly Strawn-Carreño, aytm
aytm’s Molly Strawn-Carreño introduces Waves of Thinking live from the floor at Learners Research Week 2026 in San Francisco. This short-form series captures unfiltered conversations with the researchers, strategists, and insights leaders shaping the future of consumer intelligence. No slides, no polish—just sharp perspectives from the people doing the work, recorded in the moments between sessions when the thinking is still fresh.
Emily Schlemmer — Pinterest
Emily Schlemmer, Staff User Experience Researcher, Teen Safety and Well-being at Pinterest, sat down with us at Learners Research Week 2026 to challenge a default most teams accept without question: Daily Active Users as a north star. For teens and kids, daily access often isn’t even their choice—parental controls, shared devices, and screen time limits mean standard metrics end up punishing the user for things they don’t control. Emily walks through a framework for rethinking it: partner with your data scientists and PMs, operationalize what the user actually wants to achieve, and measure against that. Better well-being and better retention turn out to be the same story.
Nicole Naurath — Google
Nicole Naurath, Staff UX Researcher at Google, makes the case for designing past the expert user. Researchers love expert users—they’re easy to find, easy to interview, and a fraction of the actual market. At Learners Research Week 2026, Nicole breaks down how technical jargon like “device sharing” tanks survey data because users don’t recognize their own behavior in that language. Reframe the question into real actions—who uses your phone, who logs in—and the patterns surface. Her bigger argument: when you build for users with lower digital proficiency, the product gets better for everyone.
Cyrus Sarraf — Cash App
Cyrus Sarraf, Research Lead at Cash App, reframes how to think about acquisition and retention as two halves of the same equation. In this Waves of Thinking conversation at Learners Research Week 2026, he makes the case that a $5 sign-up bonus brings in users who churn, while a $100 incentive tied to real actions over three to six months brings in users who stick. Pair that with product embedment—building interconnected value across multiple solutions—and switching becomes its own cost. Acquisition stops fighting retention, and lifetime value finally moves in the right direction.
Denise Sauerteig — Turo
Denise Sauerteig, Lead UX Researcher at Turo, introduced a concept she calls collective effervescence—engineering transcendent moments that bring people together and actually drive collective action. At Learners Research Week 2026, she breaks down three tactics for getting there: tell a real human story (hers involves getting bitten by a seal, and you’ll remember it longer than any stat); make research approachable by bringing real participants and their voices into the room; and design like a content creator, because compelling beats comprehensive every time. Research that lives in a deck is research that doesn’t move.
Preeti Talwai — Google
Preeti Talwai, Staff UX Research Lead at Google, introduces what she calls anticipatory research—designing programs around organizational needs leadership hasn’t fully seen yet. At Learners Research Week 2026, she breaks it into three types of corners researchers can look around: blind spots, the existing gaps with low conviction; frontiers, the future-oriented areas with executive backing but no clear point of view; and bets, the future-facing spaces where conviction is low and leadership lacks a foothold. The common thread: taking the initiative to look around the corner is how researchers stop reacting and start leading.
Sasha Mitts — Independent Researcher
Sasha Mitts, Independent Researcher focused on human-centered AI, makes the case that capability without a mental model is a tool waiting to be misused. At Learners Research Week 2026, he argues that human-centered AI isn’t about slowing down capability growth—it’s about pairing it with the mental models people need to trust the tools, see where they’re brittle, and use them well. His favorite illustration: the thermometer existed for 250 years before widespread adoption took hold, because the technology only landed once people understood temperature as a symptom of disease. Capability had been there. The mental model was what unlocked it.
Caitlin McCurrie — Intercom
Caitlin McCurrie, Ph.D., Director of Research at Intercom, makes the case for a real experimentation mindset with AI—not just using it for the fun, low-stakes work, but leaning into the uncomfortable parts of the workflow where failure is actually on the table. At Learners Research Week 2026, she breaks down why researchers need to confront the “icky” applications like qualitative analysis to keep control of how AI shapes the work. Her bigger argument: researchers have to keep ownership of the uniquely human ability to interrogate data, identify patterns, and communicate insight. Lean on AI too hard, and that voice gets dampened right when the business needs it most.
Hannah Pileggi
Hannah Pileggi, former Senior Director of UX Research at Duolingo, draws a sharp line between getting credit for research and actually having influence. At Learners Research Week 2026, she walks through how to manage the tension between stakeholders who design from their own product usage and researchers bringing data from a broader, more diverse audience. Her tactic: lean on large-scale surveys to deliver representative data that can’t be argued away by a single anecdote. Her bigger point: true influence isn’t about being credited in the room, it’s the groundswell of others recognizing the value of the work and making the right decision because of it.
David Yin
David Yin, Founder and President of Capital Y Consulting and a longtime consumer insights and brand strategy leader, breaks down what he calls “managing faith”—the real work of keeping an organization confident in a function that isn’t a direct revenue driver. At Learners Research Week 2026, he walks through the three ingredients that keep that faith intact: quality, so stakeholders trust the data; clarity, so findings actually land; and actionability, the step most researchers conflate with clarity but shouldn’t. His sharpest point: a clear story isn’t the same as an actionable one, and the job often ends with naming the specific decision the research unlocks.
Until next time
Nine conversations. Three days. A lot to think about. aytm’s Waves of Thinking series wrapped up at Learners Research Week 2026 with perspectives from UX researchers, strategists, and insights leaders at Pinterest, Google, Turo, Intercom, Cash App, and more. The through-line wasn’t any one methodology or tool—it was the same question showing up in different forms: how do you make research actually land, with the people you serve and the teams who act on it? We’re leaving inspired—and already looking ahead to Quirk’s New York in July. Catch up on every episode and stay tuned for what’s next.
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