Esther Li

Dr. Li is a human factors scientist and developmental psychologist with expertise in human development, decision-making, and communication. She investigates human factors in accidents involving pedestrians and vehicles, slips, trips, and falls, consumer products, and warnings and risk communications.

Dr. Li specializes in incidents involving children and adolescents, including analyzing the role of child supervision in accidents and considerations for effectively conveying risks and warnings for products intended for or used by children. She has extensive experience in designing and conducting research that examines how people perceive information, assess risks, and make decisions. She is proficient in qualitative and quantitative research methods, as well as scientific communications to technical and non-technical audiences.

Dr. Li has applied her expertise to solve real-world User Experience (UX) problems across industries. With respect to automated vehicles, she conducted generative research to evaluate operational risks and inform product growth strategy. In education technology, she applied user-centered design principles to improve the usability of learning applications for families with children. She also directed end-to-end research programs for software-as-a-service (SaaS) products, applying diverse research methods (e.g., A/B tests, segmentation analyses, focus groups, usability studies) to identify user needs, optimize user experiences, and promote user engagement and retention.

Dr. Li earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Rochester. Her research focused on adolescent-parent relationships, with an emphasis on adolescent information management, communication patterns, and parental monitoring. She investigated how adolescents and caregivers communicate, seek, and manage information, and examined the motivations underlying these behaviors and their implications for adolescent well-being.