🎤 Community Highlights

Be like Samantha (Cognitive Neuroscientist), Tyler (UXR) and Rossana (UXR) who connected in Los Angles last week for their May Research Lunch Club Lunch!

Fancy meeting new researchers? Building a few bridges over lunch? and growing your research network?

🚀 Research Lunch Club is matching researchers across 30+ cities worldwide this May - connecting members in trios from fields like AI ethics, cognitive science, ethnography, and UX research. Whether you’re in New York or Sao Paulo or Sydney, there’s a seat at the table.

Be part of our second round of matches this month - it’s like networking, but tailored, fun and over lunch!

🍽️ Follow us on Instagram @researchlunchclub to catch real-life lunch stories and researcher meetups from around the world.

🔬 Research Lunch Club Member Interview

This week’s interview is from Research Lunch Club - where researchers meet in person for monthly lunches in their city.

🔬 Our Meet Our Members series shares the journeys of researchers across disciplines - so you can get to know who you might be sitting down with over lunch!

Research Lunch Club x

📰 Article Picks

🔗 The Dangerous Appeal of Fake AI Users | Trevor Calabro warns against using large language models (LLMs) as synthetic or “proxy” users in UX research. He critiques the growing practice of prompting chatbots to simulate user interviews and insights, arguing that it leads to illusion rather than understanding. Calabro explains that LLMs can only generate plausible-sounding sentences, not grounded user behavior. The danger lies in replacing rigorous research with fast, fabricated feedback that reinforces team biases.

🔗 Data vs. Business Strategy: Which Is Responsible for What? | Jens Linden, PhD, challenges the trend of treating data strategy as separate from business strategy. Drawing on Roger Martin’s “Playing to Win” framework, Linden argues that data-related decisions must be embedded within the broader strategic vision. Linden defines strategy as an integrated set of choices to win in the market. Data, AI, and analytics should support - not duplicate - that logic. A separate data strategy risks confusion, inefficiency, and misalignment.

🔗 Why I’m Not Worried About My UX Job in the Era of AI | Raluca Budiu of Nielsen Norman Group argues that AI is a new tool — not a threat — to UX professionals. She reflects on 20 years of evolving UX methods and welcomes AI as the next iteration. Budiu highlights that while AI may automate tasks like usability testing or transcription, it cannot replace core UX skills: defining problems, asking good questions, and interpreting human behavior.

🔗 Submit An Article!

🎙️ Podcast Pick

🌎️ Community Event

💼 Job Picks

Are you a hiring manager looking to share research opportunities with a global network of over 2,000 researchers in more than 60 countries? We'd love to hear from you! Just drop us an email ✉️.

UK & Europe

• Senior UX Researcher - Payout 🇬🇧 UK

• Service Designer 🇬🇧 UK

• Senior Service Designer 🇸🇪 Sweden

• Lead UX Researcher 🇩🇪 Germany

North America

• Senior User Experience Researcher 🇺🇸 U.S.

• Senior User Researcher 🇺🇸 U.S.

• UX Researcher 🇺🇸 U.S.

• Quantitative UX Researcher 🇨🇦 Canada

Oceania

• Senior UX Researcher 🇦🇺 Australia

• Senior Quantitative Researcher 🇦🇺 Australia

Latin America

• Quantitative UX Researcher 🇧🇷 Brazil

• Senior Researcher - Brazil 🇧🇷 Brazil

• UX Researcher, Core 🇲🇽 Mexico

Asia

• Researcher 🇸🇬 Singapore

• UX Researcher 🇸🇬 Singapore

• Principal Quantitative Researcher 🇮🇳 India

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👋 About us

We’re People of Research & Research Lunch Club - a global hybrid community uniting researchers across the industries, from UX Research to Behavioural Science. We connect, collab and grow. People of Research was created by @faysel.