Trustworthy, Secure, Human-Centered Innovation in the Age of AI

Nov 05, 2026, 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM

Rubin Campus Center, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Join us at UXSYM, where researchers, practitioners, and innovators come together to advance the future of human-centered product innovation.

About UXSYM

UXSYM is a premier platform that brings together leaders from academia, industry, government, and nonprofit organizations to shape the future of human-centered AI. The symposium explores how trusted,secure, and responsible AI can amplify human capabilities, create meaningful value, and drive innovation. By examining the powerful synergy between people and AI, UXSYM fosters new ideas for building products, workplaces, and experiences that empower individuals and help organizations thrive.

Human-Centered AI

Creating value through human-centered innovation requires a data-driven research and development approach that translates evidence into informed product decisions. Traditionally, this work has been carried out through User Experience Research (UXR). As AI transforms how research is conducted, it is giving rise to a new discipline: Human-Centered AI Research.

This emerging practice combines AI’s computational capabilities with researchers’ uniquely human strengths, such as judgment, empathy, and ethical reasoning, to explore how AI can transform both the process and outcomes of innovation. It improves the research process by enhancing productivity in research planning, data collection, analysis, and large-scale data synthesis. It also enhances innovation outcomes by enabling the development of novel AI-powered experiences that people trust and value.

By strengthening research capabilities and expanding opportunities for innovation, Human-Centered AI Research plays a critical role in shaping the future of product innovation.

Subscribe For Event Updates

Program (Updated Regularly)

8:30 AM

Registration & Networking
Continental Breakfast

9:15 AM

Welcoming Remarks: The Human Advantage in the Future of Human-Centered Product Innovation (Soussan Djamasbi) Location: Odeum A/B

While AI enables us to work faster and at greater scale, its true promise lies not simply in accelerating workflows, but in amplifying uniquely human capabilities such as contextual understanding, ethical reasoning, creativity, and judgment. In an increasingly crowded and fast-paced digital economy with an insatiable appetite for people-centered products, sustainable growth will depend on how effectively organizations support human insight, empathy, and decision-making with AI’s computational power to create products and experiences that people value and trust. These welcoming remarks explore the next steps toward building human-centered work and learning environments that foster innovation, create lasting value, and enable organizations to thrive in the age of AI.

9:30 AM

Keynote: Human First: Designing Meaningful Experiences in the Age of AI (Danae Zoellin) Location: Odeum A/B

AI is reshaping how we create products, make decisions, and engage customers. Yet as technology grows more capable at supporting product development, the human role becomes even more important, not less. In this keynote, the Global Head of Amazon Ads Design shares insights from designing at global scale and explores how human-centered thinking helps organizations build AI-powered experiences that people can trust, understand, and value. Through real-world lessons and examples, the keynote discusses how to balance innovation with responsibility, automation with empathy, and machine intelligence with human judgment so that AI can enhance the human experience and create lasting impact.

10:30 AM

Networking & Demos

10:45 AM

Panel: Trustworthy AI in Autonomous Systems: Security, Accountability, and Human-Centered Innovation (Andrew Aberdale, Jocelyn Gaw, Danae Zoellin, Moderator: John Wyatt) Location: Odeum A/B

As AI evolves from assistive tools to systems that can make decisions and take action, organizations face a critical challenge: how to innovate while maintaining security, trust, and accountability. This panel explores how AI must be designed, tested, and governed to be resilient, responsible, and aligned with human values. With diverse perspectives and real-world insights, speakers will examine how organizations can balance AI opportunities with emerging risks and build a practical foundation for trustworthy AI adoption.

11:45 AM

Lunch & Networking

1:15 PM

Fireside Chat/Panel: Challenges in AI-enabled Person-Centered Design for Health and Wellness (Daniel J. Amante , Rajani Sadasivam, Moderator: Bengisu Tulu) Location: TBD

As AI continues to transform healthcare and wellness, ensuring that innovations translate into meaningful benefits for patients and communities remains a significant challenge. This fireside chat brings together experts in digital health innovation, patient-centered design, and implementation science to explore how AI solutions can be developed, evaluated, and successfully integrated into real-world settings. Through case studies and practical experiences, panelists will discuss strategies for designing trustworthy and equitable AI systems, engaging patients and clinicians, addressing barriers to adoption, and measuring meaningful outcomes. Attendees will gain insights into how human-centered approaches can help bridge the gap between technological innovation and lasting impact on health and wellness.

2:15 PM

Networking & Demos

2:30 PM

Mini Workshop: Building Conversational Personas with AI; From User Interviews to Interactive Digital Stakeholders (John Wyatt) Location: TBD

Advances in generative AI now make it possible to transform qualitative user research into interactive conversational personas that teams can engage with throughout the design and innovation process. In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn how to use interview data to create AI-powered personas that capture the goals, experiences, motivations, and concerns of specific user populations. The session will demonstrate a practical methodology that combines persona development, memory structures, behavioral rules, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures to produce realistic conversational representations of users.
Presentation: The AI-Augmented Product Team: Transforming Design, Development, and Innovation (Natasha Lloyd) Location: TBD

This session explores how AI-enabled tools can help product teams achieve faster experimentation, stronger collaboration, and more seamless product experiences by breaking down traditional barriers between design and development. Drawing on real-world lessons learned from implementing AI-driven workflows across multidisciplinary teams, the workshop examines the organizational strategies, governance considerations, and cultural shifts necessary for success. Participants will gain practical insights and leave with a roadmap for building more agile, innovative, and collaborative product organizations in the age of AI.

3:30 PM

Networking Break & Demos

3:45 PM

Mini Workshop: Building a Legal AI Roadmap: Lessons from Leading Enterprise AI Deployments (Andrew Aberdale) Location: TBD

Artificial intelligence is transforming legal departments, but successful adoption requires more than selecting the right technology. It demands thoughtful leadership, strong governance, cross-functional collaboration, and a human-centered approach that builds trust while delivering measurable business value. This workshop explores what it takes to lead a legal team’s AI roadmap, from identifying high-impact use cases and evaluating AI solutions to deploying tools responsibly across the organization. Participants will learn practical frameworks for balancing innovation with legal, ethical, security, and regulatory considerations while ensuring AI enhances, rather than replaces, human expertise. Whether you lead Legal Operations, serve as in-house counsel, manage AI initiatives, or support digital transformation, this workshop provides practical tools to help your legal organization deploy AI responsibly, improve efficiency, and empower legal professionals to focus on higher-value strategic work.

4:45 PM

Closing Remarks Location: Odeum A/B

5:00-6:00 PM

Networking

Speakers

Andrew Aberdale, II is a data science and technology leader at Insulet whose work sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and digital transformation. Combining expertise in analytics with advanced training in both business and data science, he helps organizations develop responsible AI strategies while managing emerging technology risks. Andrew is particularly focused on creating secure, trustworthy AI solutions that enable smarter decisions, strengthen resilience, and support long-term organizational success.

Soussan Djamasbi, Ph.D., is a Professor of Information Systems and the founder and director of the User Experience and Decision Making (UXDM) Lab and the NeuroIS Research Program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). Her research is at the forefront of Human-Centered AI, exploring how digital technologies can support and enhance human judgment and decision-making. A pioneer in applying eye-tracking methods to human-centered innovation, Dr. Djamasbi and her research team have developed AI-powered approaches that detect and objectively measure the depth of human engagement through patterns of eye movement. Building on this groundbreaking work, they have created intelligent systems capable of identifying health conditions such as chronic pain and anxiety from visual engagement behaviors. By transforming subtle eye movement patterns into reliable, objective health indicators, these AI-enabled tools provide clinicians with deeper insights into patients’ conditions, supporting more informed diagnoses and treatment decisions.

Jocelyn Tan Gaw is Chief Technology Officer and EVP of Technology at Veros Real Estate Solutions, with more than 25 years of experience across technology leadership, AI, digital transformation, cybersecurity, and product innovation. She leads Veros’s technology organization spanning AI, Architecture, Engineering, QA, and IT, and has held senior leadership roles at New American Funding, Mr. Cooper, Black Knight Financial Services, and Fidelity National Financial, managing global teams across the U.S., Switzerland, India, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. AI is central to her leadership. A 2025 HousingWire Tech Trendsetter, Jocelyn established a dedicated AI team and enterprise AI strategy at Veros, driving adoption across the organization — from AI-generated and validated business rules that improved valuation accuracy at scale, to AI-assisted quality control, governance, and AI embedded throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC) to accelerate and improve delivery. Alongside a cloud-native transformation and DevOps automation that cut software delivery by more than 50%, she has positioned technology — and AI — as a strategic driver of value for the business.

Natasha Lloyd is a design leader and product innovation strategist who serves as Senior Product Design Manager at Klaviyo. She leads teams responsible for design systems, design operations, and internal product experiences, helping organizations scale design excellence across complex environments. With a background spanning both UX design and software development, Natasha is passionate about fostering cross-functional collaboration and empowering teams to leverage AI and other emerging technologies to reimagine how products are designed and built.

Bengisu Tulu is a professor of information systems at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, passionate about applying user centered design to develop engaging digital health solutions. Her research focused on designing and implementing digital health interventions to support patients and clinicians managing chronic conditions. These digital interventions targeted suicide prevention, weight management, perinatal depression, chronic wound management, and substance use. Dr. Tulu has worked on commercialization of digital health solutions and worked with small businesses who provide these services in NIH-funded Small Business Innovation Research/Technology Transfer grants. Her expertise is in technology implementations, user-centered design and analytics in health care contexts.

John Wyatt is a Senior Program Manager of Research Operations at Amazon. With over a decade in the UX/UXR realm, John has empowered both Fortune 100s and nimble startups to launch and scale UXR programs, converting insights into actionable outcomes. John believes in UXR’s potential to not just spearhead product innovation but to also instill a customer-centric ethos. A leading member of UXSYM’s organizing committee since its inception, he remains captivated by the partnership and innovation from academic-industry collaborations.

Danae Zoellin is a distinguished executive and design leader who has spent more than a decade at Amazon driving design innovation at global scale. As the newly appointed Global UX Leader for AWS, she brings a wealth of experience building and leading high-performing design organizations that create customer-centered solutions for complex technology environments. Prior to this role, Danae served as Senior Manager of Design for Amazon Advertising, where she led cross-functional design teams responsible for delivering innovative user experiences across Amazon’s multi-billion-dollar advertising business. Her work focused on aligning design strategy with business objectives, scaling design excellence, and developing systems that enhance customer experiences while driving measurable business impact. Danae is passionate about the intersection of AI, cloud technologies, and human-centered design. Her work demonstrates how design-led innovation can transform complex technologies into intuitive, trusted, and impactful experiences that deliver meaningful value for customers and organizations alike.