# Chidinma Kalu > Design Researcher| Previously Amazon & Meta Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/chidinma I am a researcher and founder of Yourlivefit, a commerce platform and consultancy for retail. I have developed and distributed early virtual try-ons in XR and AI with What are those and Attire.ai. My focus is on product discovery, customer demos in retail communities, and contributing to the development of AI/ML-driven image recognition technologies in mainstream retail. I prioritize enhancing functionality through usability testing and customer feedback. With over two years of experience in AI/ML innovation and seven years in user experience design, my work revolves around creating sustainable and commercially viable solutions in the technology and fashion industries. My previous roles include discovery and GTM-focused research at Ring by Amazon and Meta Glass, and Western Digital which reflect my expertise in participatory design, AI-enabled marketplaces, and strategic customer discovery ( what the product does and what the user needs). By leveraging skills in prompt engineering, trust services, and content management, I aim to deliver user-centered products that integrate cutting-edge technologies with impactful, real-world applications. ## Work Experience ### Forward Deployed Builder and Researcher @ Yourlivefit Jan 2023 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area Designed , Built and Deployed Attires.ai for fashion designers. • Designed and implemented image recognition features for Attires.ai, enhancing user experience through feedback. • Led customer validation processes for vendors, focusing on user experience and technical research in AI/ML. Distribution, research and design for What are those • Designed, co-developed, tested and distributed an AI marketplace for streetwear enthusiasts, facilitating better product discovery and sales for sneaker vendors and sneakerheads. ### User Experience Intern @ Amazon Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | California, United States July 22 - Sep 22/ June 23- Aug 23 Conducted strategic customer discovery for new Ring SMB products and exceeded requests by acting as an internal liaison between XFN teams to provide analysis and awareness of multiple data sources for (Go to Market) in prioritization of product delivery goals for the quarter. • Used participatory design, usability studies, and field studies to identify target audience and use cases to de-risk and validate new Ring feature allocation and technical complexity. ### Graduate Human Factors Research Assistant @ Iowa State University Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 | Ames, IA I concluded graduate degree in MS. Human-Computer Interaction. My interests are in human-centered design for improved software, hardware, and behaviors. I researched and designed XR user experience collaborating with computer graphic developers and researchers to develop applications to solve NSF-funded research using virtual and augmented reality (VR). ### User Researcher @ Meta Jan 2021 – Jan 2021 | California, United States Ran diary studies for Meta AR/VR product( Orion ) Ray ban stories use cases ### Digital Marketing Manager @ Ankaralabels via LiveYourChi Jan 2020 – Jan 2020 | San Jose, California, United States -Manages business operations for the eCommerce store, social media, design, and business strategy. -Collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing user insights from a variety of data sources (e.g. could include interviews, surveys, focus groups, or other methods) - Conducted competitive analysis and translated insights into actionable research and created personas for the target customers. -Translates UX learnings into insights that inform and generate business impacts in areas such as product design, development, marketing, or business strategy ### UX Communications Specialist @ Meta Jan 2020 – Jan 2020 | Menlo Park, California, United States • Managed portal community group to understand root cause of issues regarding bugs in system, network and UX, and communicate feedback from alpha and beta testers to appropriate pillars. • Conducted focus groups to test the portal and synthesize feedback and survey responses to create actionable steps for the TPM, PM and Product Designers. ### Founder, Researcher & Designer @ Liveyourchi Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | San Jose I offered the following services to small businesses and startups such as American Umma, Ankaralabels, and Paved It. - UX research - Customer Avatar - Rapid low fidelity prototyping - High fidelity prototyping - Usability testing - Iteration •Conducted multiple phases of research (interviews, surveys, diary studies, etc.) to gather more insights on customer needs, habits, and pain points regarding shopping for clothes. •Synthesized feedback into personas used value-complexity quadrants to create a well-managed design proposal for a startup team of 6 for American Umma clothing. •Implemented and iterated on a prioritized design proposal through versions of wireframes, sketches, mockups mock-ups and app development handoff and usability testing. ### Launch Product Designer @ Western Digital Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 | Redwood City • Proposed and implemented research plan and design solutions for multiple product lines (iXpand, Ibi, and MyCloud Home products) through usability testing, heuristics evaluation, and wireframes to increase engagement, and improve the quality of new product releases. • Worked on SanDisk’s flashback’s consumer insights and influenced product roadmap with user-centered improvement of the flashback landing page with visual design and sales funnels. • Iterated on a prioritized design proposal through versions of wireframes, sketches, mock-ups and app development handoff and usability testing to improve ibi app experience WD creates multiple storage solutions from SSDs, HDD, USB and cloud storage. Storage devices at constantly evolving to meet the needs of a changing technology ecosystem with products like the IBI photo manager, iXpand wireless charger and mycloud/my cloud home product lines. etc ### UX and Privacy Content Specialist @ Google Jan 2018 – Jan 2019 | Palo Alto Reviewed and enforced on apps daily to ensure developer adherence to COPPA trust and safety policy for all applications designed for family ensuring =>90% accuracy of apps published on the store. https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/06/google-play-cracks-down-on-ai-apps-after-circulation-of-apps-for-making-deepfake-nudes/ ### Intern Student Success @ San Jose State University Jan 2018 – Jan 2018 | San Francisco Bay Area Provided additional resources for advising for General Education, Undeclared Students, students requiring remediation, International Students and those on probation or disqualified. Transition resources at the African American Black Success Center. Ran a focus group leading to insights on the transfer and international student population's academic achievement and retention rate and improvements. ### Product Specialist @ Meta Jan 2016 – Jan 2018 | Menlo park, CA •Collaborated with cross-functional teams in design, engineering and data science to improve the quality and stability of Facebook ’s utility products by highlighting top user pain points and suggesting strategies for scaling support from a wide user pool to one on one. •Analyzed and escalated product feedback to increase the quality of Facebook’s utility products; created solution frameworks by analyzing each customer feedback for (Search, Pages, Messenger & Live Video Escalations). •Prepared reports and dashboards that highlighted trending issues, regressions and new feature prioritization and an increase in queries up to 2 billion post searches. •Advocates as the voice of the users and push for logging improvements leading to the prioritization of product fixes and metrics improvements from 51 - 61% of click-through rates • Create and maintain internal tooling source code and documentation for investigation of product feedback, and use data visualization to communicate trends and pain points, contributing to an increase in queries over 2 billion/day ### Model and Brand Ambassador @ NYLO Model & Talent Agency Jan 2012 – Jan 2018 | San Francisco Bay Area •Brand ambassador and outreach specialist for Year Up Bay Area: utilized engaging strategies to reach out to the community, NPOs and mentored youth individually to close the opportunity divide. •Merges Fashion & Technology Enthusiasm by participating in on call start up brand marketing events to target audiences. •Able to deliver engaging tech talks on upcoming tech products to a target audience and officiate networking events. •Servef as a host to 100-1000s of people at tech events. Meets and actively engaged conference attendees, communicating the new product and acquired company details. •Demonstrated products use to customers and acted as the brand for designers Union & Fifth, Tommy Hilfiger, Kat VonD, Volkswagen Les Lunes, Shekhar Rahate, Debbie Nghiem (GG connections), Mimi Tran & Fash tech( IBM 360). •Walked in Runway shows for Bay Area designers in San Francisco Fashion Week and Sustainable fashion week. As well as Arise Fashion Week Lagos and House of iKons, London Fashion Week. •Managed behind the scenes e-commerce catalog and fashion e-commerce video and photo shoots for Annekara.com and GG connections. ### Outreach Specialist @ Year Up Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco Bay Area • Built and maintained relationships with local organizations and other referral sources. • Invited applicants by phone/email to weekly orientations held at the office.  • Led Information Sessions for prospective students to learn more about the Year Up program.  • Managed Salesforce database daily to track applicants’ progress through the process. ### Beta Triage Engineer @ TiVo (Contractor) Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 | Alviso, Ca •Assessed and escalated technical issues reported by alpha and beta customer tester and partner testers while products are in development for multiple release candidates on TiVo products (TiVo HD, Premiere, Roamio, Mini, Stream, TiVo Wireless Adapters, Android and iOS TiVo app) including software, hardware, Over-The-Air (OTA) applications, mobile apps, networking, audio and video equipment. •Collaborated with Beta Program Managers to support TiVo's in-home testers. •Worked with Quality Engineering and Development teams to ease their triage process and hasten fixes. •Filed clear and completed actionable bugs reports to resolution. •Prepared reports and dashboards that highlight trending issues, and quantitative analysis of issues reported to present data during core team meetings and weekly partner meetings. •Participated in bug council meeting to drive areas of concern towards a high-quality product. •Took charge of partner Frontier(MSO) triaging processes resulting in a go and market launch. •Managed alpha and beta software, account and service related issues using Gam, Green Form, Mass Update, BSM, Service Portal, String theory, SAP and Service Now. ### Telecommunications Expense Management Intern @ Meta Jan 2014 – Jan 2015 | Menlo Park •Tracked IT Assets & Mobile expenses with domestic carriers (AT&T, Sprint & Verizon) •Maintained and improved the accuracy of internal tracking systems. (MobileIron, Salesforce and Internal -Manages data from 30+ mobile carriers domestic and worldwide, while communicating with over 15 IT field tech’s globally to maintain an accurate database. •Saved over to $77,520 in cost per month for Facebook by investigating inactive line usage, and unlocking iPhones and utilizing reports on device management platforms like Splunk, Oracle Dev, Salesforce and Facebook’s internal tool. •Devised processes to maintain an up to date asset database while in a fast growth environment, involving up to an average of 200+ bi-weekly hires and company acquisitions. •Managed service roll-out project for new data roaming service provider (iPass & Global gig ), involving the scheduling of end-user support training and awareness to IT field tech leads in APAC, EMEA and LatAm worldwide, to serve Facebook's frequent travelers and eliminate data roaming cost significantly by 75%. ### Information Technology Trainee @ Year Up Jan 2014 – Jan 2015 | San Jose Year up is an accelerated one year program aimed towards teaching young willing individuals core skills to be corporate world ready. Here, I focused on technical support training and project management. Project Management: • Training sessions with founders of CPrime: SCRUM, Agile, Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and Waterfall methodology. • The creation of sprint backlogs, burn-down charts and tracking the execution of group deliverable • Creating high-quality professional presentations via PowerPoint, MS Word, Keynote and Google Docs to present to clients or peers regularly Other skills • Python and SQL in progress • Hardware Trouble-shooting • Basic Web Design (HTML 5, CSS ) • Project Management • Productivity software ( Excel, Word ,Outlook & Power Point) • Group dynamics & support. * Data Analysis (Oracle, Tableau, Splunk & Salesforce) ### Library Assistant @ Evergreen Valley College Jan 2012 – Jan 2014 | San Jose , California • Detail oriented reading of library of congress, which resulted to organized and easy to find material. • Performed inventory on over 100's of books a week, resulting in replacement of lost and outdated books. • Provided excellent customer service to over 25 customers an hour; helping staff & students locate materials, and guided them on how to use the library database. ### Student Representative @ Evergreen Valley College Jan 2012 – Jan 2013 | California Area • Represented over 3000 students at the student trustee meetings and also at the Student Senate Community College Council ( regional level) California Community colleges. • Worked at solving problems of student welfare affairs at the community college. • Worked in groups to plan events that benefited the student's welfare and academics to increase transfer rate. • Contributed and campaigned for a subsidized VTA Eco pass for all enrolled students to reduce transportation costs and save our eco-system. ## Education ### Master's degree in Human Computer Interaction Iowa State University ### Bachelors in Arts Psychology in Psychology and Human Computer Interaction San José State University ### UX Design in HTML, CSS and Python Udacity ### Information Technology in Computer Systems Networking and Telecommunications Foothill College ### Associate of Science (A.S.) in Research and Experimental Psychology Evergreen Valley College ### Doctor of Philosophy - PhD in Human Computer Interaction Iowa State University ### User Experience Designer in User Experience Design and Research General Assembly ### Doctor of Philosophy - PhD in Human Computer Interaction Iowa State University ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/chidinmaukohakalu- - Portfolio: https://chidebiola.wixsite.com/research - Portfolio: https://calendly.com/whatsus/30min --- Source: https://flows.cv/chidinma JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/chidinma/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13