Nate Bolt, President
Nate is the co-founder and president of Bolt | Peters, co-author of Remote Research, creator of Ethnio, animator of dinosaurs, and collaborating artist at beep show. He’s currently an adjunct professor at the graduate interaction design program at the School of Visual Arts in NY. Nate co-founded B|P in 2002, and has overseen hundreds of research and design projects for Sony, The New York Times, Twitter, Dreamworks, Greenpeace, Electronic Arts, and others.
Nate speaks regularly in academic and commercial settings – SXSW, UX London, CHI, UX Week, UX Paris, Webvisions, IxDA, and U.C. Berkeley. Working with faculty at U.C. San Diego, he created a degree titled “Digital Technology and Society,” which focused on the social impact of technology. He also completed a year of communications studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he was jailed briefly for playing drums in public without a license. He attended Phoot Camp for three years, has photos featured in SF Magazine, Pictory, and 7×7, and made that one time-lapse of SF to Paris which landed him on ABC News and the Today Show. He also manages a healthy Instagram addiction.
** about.me/boltron | twitter **
Cyd Harrell, Vice President
Cyd has had a passion for the way things work since before user experience was a recognized field. She received her formal training from Yale University, where she studied Linguistics with a focus on socio-linguistics. Cyd’s career has included roles in Marketing, QA, Product Management, and official User Experience. Her expertise in qualitative analysis and her interpretive skill have enabled her to bring together user needs and business requirements to the benefit of both. Along the way, she made time to help found San Francisco Women on Web, an education and networking organization.
Cyd joined Bolt |Peters in July 2006 after several years at Charles Schwab. She manages B|P’s consulting arm, and has assisted clients such as Sony, Washington Post, and Harvard Business School in making major changes to their web offerings. In the rest of her life she writes poetry, practices yoga, and hangs out with her young daughter.
** twitter | cydharrell.com (personal site) | linkedin **
Jodi Leo, Director of UX
Jodi is an interaction designer, user researcher, and user experience strategist with expertise on web and mobile products. An accomplished user experience director, her designs for everyday American workers with retirement accounts at Fidelity Investments was both recognized by an innovation award and patented for its ease and improvement (US 2010/0153298 A1, June 17, 2010). Jodi has worked on both sides of the house – client and agency – and she’s invented or improved user experiences for dozens of companies including GE, Facebook, Sony, Herman Miller, Sears, CNN, ESPN, Firefox, Merrill Lynch, Fidelity, and several stealthy start ups.
By example, she’s helped companies integrate user research into their processes since before it was a field with a name (User Experience). Jodi’s been an admirer of Bolt | Peters for years and used the book Remote Research like a bible in her quest to find more efficient ways to test designs at her previous role as Director of UX at The Barbarian Group. She’s very excited to join this band of experts. In 2000, Jodi co-founded the Grange Open House for the Arts in RI, which has been home to 14 artists, resulting in 3 published books, 8 released recordings, 12 art exhibitions, several grants and successful creative ventures. She still spends most weekends there playing her guitar, working on paintings, and bringing together like-minded makers.
Jodi can also tell you a lot about the ‘80s / early ‘90s punk scene, as can her husband, Ted, with whom she resides in Brooklyn. She’ll be helping build the B|P empire in New York at Studiomates.
Stephanie Carter, UX Researcher
Stephanie is an expert in behavior change methodologies and persuasive technology, and works with clients to identify opportunities for product development and design. She has worked in ethnography in many capacities, as a designer at a Bay area medical device incubator, ExploraMed, as an urban planner at a Boston area architectural firm, Goody Clancy, and as a resident naturalist for a nonprofit in the jungles of Peru.
She spent four months as lead designer and builder of a micronutrient flour fortifier for malnourished communities in Rwanda while enrolled in a course called Design for Extreme Affordability at Stanford University’s d.school. For an additional four months after the class ended, she continued as Project Manager of the team to produce a comprehensive study of existing small scale fortification programs, and to chemically test and evaluate market viability of the device.
As a graduate of Stanford’s Design Program, her research and design investigated disease and epidemics with a focus on obesity and odors. Prior to Stanford, she received a BA in Environmental Sciences and Art Theory & Practice from Northwestern University, focusing on photography and green building design. She worked for three years as an Urban Planner at Goody Clancy in Boston before deciding to move to the Peruvian Amazon. Despite swimming in rivers full of piranha, she emerged unscathed and now happily enjoy exploring interests as a design and UX researcher in the Bay area.
** twitter | lemontrail.com | linkedin **
Kate Nartker, Art Director
Kate calmly balances running the marketing and artistic endeavors of B|P. With a degree in Media Studies from Ohio State University, she has researched the relationship between technology and people from several angles and continues to pursue this interest at Bolt | Peters. She is currently earning her MFA from the California College of the Arts.
While originally from the mid-west, Kate finds San Francisco to be much more inhabitable and interesting. When not sitting in front of a computer, she is probably in front of a sewing machine honing her fashion design skills or riding her bike. She also once performed a syncronized swimming dance to Paul Simon’s Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes in Napolean, Ohio.
** twitter | personal site **
Sela, Dog
This is the office dog. Her name is Sela. There is literally nothing more that needs to be said about Sela, other than that she is the rad dog that comes to our office twice a week. Unfortunately, it looks really weird with no text here and a picture of a dog. She is sort of internet-famous for a robotic dog treat dispenser that Nate built for her though.
** Sela’s Personal Site | twitter |**
Distinguished Alumni
Brian Patrick Enright
Julia Houck-Whitaker
Mike Towber
Benjamin Lerch