Amy Santee on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz

03/02/21 • 62 min

In this episode of the Anthro to UX podcast, Amy Santee speaks with Matt Artz about her UX journey. Amy earned a MA in Applied Anthropology from the University of Memphis. After school, she worked in UX for a decade at companies like eBay and is now a UX career coach. About Amy Santee Amy Santee is a loud and proud career coach for current and aspiring user experience and technology professionals. From professional branding and confidence building, to job search strategy and interviewing, she works with clients to create a strategy to achieve career goals through an iterative process of exploring, learning, testing, and refining. Recommended Links

Episode Transcript Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors. Matt Artz: [00:00:00] Today, I'm with Amy Santee, a former UXR or transitioning out of UX, but with lots of UX experience now turning into a UX career coach. And so we're going to have a great conversation about, not only Amy's experience working in UX, but also all of her recommendations of how you might be able to transition into UX. [00:00:20] And you've worked in companies such as eBay. You have run your own business. Now you're really starting up. Sort of second version of your business, if you will. So you have a lot of broad experience. You want to maybe talk a little bit about that, what first brought you to anthropology? [00:00:36] How did you maybe find your way to UX? Give us a little overview. [00:00:39] Amy Santee: [00:00:39] Yeah, absolutely. And thank you so much for having me on your show. I'm really excited to be here. So yeah, again, my name's Amy Santee and I use she, her pronouns. And I live in Portland, Oregon. How I got into anthropology. It has a really long history. [00:00:53]I knew it as early as age 14 or 15 that I wanted to be an anthropologist and that's because of a computer game I played where in the game I met Dennis. Ethnobotanist on the Amazon trail. That was the name of the game actually. And I just got really curious about ethnobotany and then I, found that was a subdiscipline of anthropology and I got broader and broader The first book I picked up at borders. [00:01:17]I don't know if you remember that store, but it was Napoleon Shannon's book about being in the Amazon rainforest with different tribes. And I know that's actually a controversial book now. But I didn't know that back then, I was just kinda like exploring what was anthropology all about. And I did end up going to get my bachelor's in anthropology, as well as my master's and. [00:01:41] Initially I had that kind of basic simplified understanding of anthropology as studying other cultures and like going off and traveling the world. And, as we know, that's not a, that's really only a slice of what doing anthropology could look like. And so throughout my education especially into my master's degree, which I got at the university of Memphis in 2011. [00:02:04]My, my world expanded, or my view of anthropology expanded to encompass basically answering questions and solving problems that relate to human beings in any place on any topic. And yeah. My program at Memphis was an applied anthropology program. And so we took I took a lot of courses on applied anthropology and the realms of let's say education, healthcare urban development Basically the main topics that you might find in an anthropology program? [00:02:34] I did take a consumer research course when I was there as well, which I think planted the seed of possibly working inside of businesses and non products. And I, but my program was still very academic. Even for an applied program. And so there was just this continued growth and expansion of my understanding of what anthropology is over time and throughout my career. [00:02:58] And I really didn't fully know that until I left school, which is counter counterintuitive. If you think about it, like you want to know that. Before you leave. But there was a lot of had to fig figure out a lot of new definitions and shaping and defining my identity as an anthropologist in different ways. [00:03:16] And eventually not even referring to myself as an anthropologist and keeping that as a, a bonus or something in the background to bring up in the context of being a user experience researcher. [00:03:31] Matt Artz: [00:03:31] Great. Thanks for that. And so a few things in there. So I guess first, where did you actually hear really about UX? [00:03:38] So if you di...

Previous Episode

Larry McGrath on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz

In this episode of the Anthro to UX podcast, Larry McGrath speaks with Matt Artz about his UX journey. Larry earned a Ph.D. in History & Anthropology of Science from Johns Hopkins University and currently works as a Researcher at Facebook. About Larry McGrath Larry leads user research for technology organizations. He has taught anthropology, history, and philosophy and currently works at Facebook. At Facebook, he leads a research team. You can find his articles at Aeon and Medium. He's also the author of Making Spirit Matter: Neurology, Psychology, and Selfhood in Modern France. About Making Spirit Matter In Making Spirit Matter, Larry traces the brain sciences' history, focusing on the vexed relations between mind and body in French society over the past 200 years. Why France? The country's not only home to basic discoveries about the nervous system. France is also where the relations of spirit (esprit) and matter (matière) have remained a persistent philosophical problem; even recent advances in neuroscience haven’t been able to explain it satisfactorily. Recommended Links

Watch the Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKnLOMmtYYM Episode Transcript Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors. Matt Artz: All right. Hi everyone. Today. I'm back with Larry McGrath. He's a researcher at Facebook and has a PhD from Johns Hopkins University in history and anthropology of science, which is something new for the show. So Larry, thanks for joining me today. Look forward to talking with you. Larry McGrath: It's a pleasure to be here, Matt. Matt Artz: You know, I, I gave a very brief introduction there, but I really like to hear everybody's story from the South. So would you maybe tell us all how, you know, what led you to anthropology a little bit about the academic background and then after that, you know, we'll, we'll get into some of the more employment stuff. Sure. Larry McGrath: Well, before I start on my origin story about how I came to anthropology, I should say that I'm here doing this podcast with you because I think that there is a real business need and value to be offered by the critical research skillset that anthropologists in particular, as well as humanists and social scientists generally can bring to the business world. I think I bring it to many worlds, but I work now in the business world. And that's what I'm prepared to talk with you today. About as for my beginnings, I decided to pursue a doctorate in the history of science from Johns Hopkins University back in 2008, because it was a time when there was massive interest and investment from both the Obama administration and the European union in mapping the brain to do to the brain. What had been done to the human genome back in the 1990s. Larry McGrath: And so I set about writing a dissertation on the history of the brain sciences in Europe, particularly in France, because it was my conviction that for these projects to succeed, cultural contexts needed to be taken into account that although we have the same organ between our ears called the brain, the way in which hits, analyzed, understood mapped is dependent on contingent contexts in different places in time. And so I went about writing a dissertation on the history of the brain sciences in France. People oftentimes ask me why France. And there are multiple reasons. One of them converges with the work we do as anthropologists. There's a fundamental assumption that science technology life more generally is not the same everywhere. That cultural variance is part of what we're interested in understanding. And so there is no universal history of the brain sciences to be written. Larry McGrath: The second reason is that my skill set is in French. I lived there for a long time. And so that's the linguistic training...

Next Episode

Lauryl Zenobi on Anthro to UX

In this episode of the Anthro to UX podcast, Lauryl Zenobi speaks with Matt Artz about her UX journey. Lauryl earned a MA in archaeology from the University of Washington in 2015 and currently works as Principal UX Researcher at Ad Hoc. About Lauryl Zenobi Lauryl is a Principal UX researcher who brings human-centered design to Federal Government agencies. A recovering archaeologist, Lauryl uses her background in anthropology to build empathy with users and improve complex digital services. Check out her book "I want a UX job!", a how-to-guide for a career change into UX research, at iwantauxjob.com. About I Want a UX job! Every researcher started somewhere. Most stumbled into UX from other career paths without any guidance. This practical book will teach you how to translate your past experiences and frame yourself as a budding researcher. Along the way you'll learn how to develop your skills, join the research community, build your research portfolio, write your UX resume, and find and interview for UX research jobs. If you want a career in UX research, this book is for you. Buy a copy here. Recommended Links