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Portrait of Rebecca Stower

Rebecca Stower, PhD

Stockholm, Sweden

Ericsson · Design and User Experience

Senior UX Researcher · Product Analyst

Turning messy human data into product decisions.

As a UX researcher with experience across data analytics, quantitative research, and psychology, I translate complex data and behavioural insights into clear, actionable directions. I have worked with a range of physical and digital tech products (robots, VR, software applications, telecommunications hardware). Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, I bridge the gap between technical analysis and human-centric understanding to uncover unmet user needs and growth opportunities. I own research end-to-end, from scoping ambiguous problems through to delivering measurable impact. I partner closely with cross-functional teams, setting direction and leading research that drives product development.

Portfolio (PDF)

Experience

Selected roles

Feb 2025 — Present

Senior UX Researcher

Ericsson · Design and User Experience

Stockholm, Sweden

  • Partner cross-functionally with product managers, engineers and designers, providing data and evidence behind product decisions.
  • Design and analyse user research studies that inform product changes, quantifying business impact before roll-out (interviews, usability tests, A/B tests, surveys) to deliver high-quality user experience.
  • Construct and analyse user journeys for both digital and physical telecommunications products, generating insights used to improve user experience.
  • Build wireframes for digital telecommunication applications using Figma, Figma Make and Amazon Kiro to identify product opportunities.
  • Extract, clean and combine data from multiple sources (R, Excel, Power BI) to drive data-informed product decisions for senior stakeholders.
  • Lead an annual department-wide (~7,000 employees) developer experience survey, track success metrics (e.g., NPS, lost hours), analyse results and identify solutions for improvement.
  • Supervise industrial masters students on projects related to explainable and trustworthy AI.

Jun 2022 — Feb 2025

Postdoctoral Researcher

KTH Royal Institute of Technology · Robotics, Perception and Learning

Stockholm, Sweden

  • Independently owned multiple concurrent research projects end-to-end: scoped problems, set timelines, and delivered insights to academic and industry partners.
  • Built advanced quantitative models in R (multilevel modelling, regression, meta-analysis, latent variable mapping) to identify trends and patterns in complex, noisy datasets.
  • Designed and ran A/B tests and large-scale surveys with engineering teams, translating results into concrete design recommendations for human-centred robotics.
  • Supervised and mentored multiple MSc and PhD students across concurrent projects, setting direction, reviewing progress and taking accountability for their output.
  • Gave invited talks and presented research findings at multiple national and international conferences.

Nov 2021 — May 2022

Postdoctoral Researcher

Université Paris 8 · Cognitions Humaine et Artificielle

Paris, France

  • Delivered advanced statistical analyses across multiple parallel projects using R.
  • Authored a published book chapter introducing statistical methods and Python tooling to masters and PhD students.

Jun 2018 — Oct 2021

PhD Candidate — Developmental Psychology & Robotics

Jacobs University Bremen · Marie Skłodowska-Curie ITN ANIMATAS

Bremen, Germany

  • Doctoral research in child–robot interaction, examining how children learn from and respond to errors in robot behaviour.
  • Owned the full research lifecycle: experimental design, quantitative methods and statistical modelling of data.

Jan 2017 — Jan 2018

Behavioural Scientist

Evidn

Brisbane, Australia

  • Conducted quantitative and qualitative user research in a high-growth start-up incubator, delivering client-facing insights.
Rebecca Stower standing beside a Pepper robot, with NAO and Cozmo robots on a table
In the lab with Pepper, NAO and Cozmo.

Toolkit

What I bring to a team

Methods

  • Usability testing
  • A/B testing
  • Surveys & interviews
  • Thematic analysis
  • User journeys
  • Wireframes

Analysis

  • Regression & mixed models
  • Factor & cluster analysis
  • Latent profile analysis
  • Conjoint & MaxDiff
  • Segmentation & driver models
  • Data visualisation

Tools

  • R
  • Python
  • SQL
  • Power BI
  • SPSS
  • Figma
  • Qualtrics & Netigate
  • Git · GenAI tools

Portfolio

Human–robot interaction research

Study photo from the project “A VR Framework for Correcting Robot Errors”

VR · Robotics

A VR Framework for Correcting Robot Errors

Evaluated the benefits of a VR interface over commercially available technologies for correcting robot perception errors, informing future interface design.

User journey
  1. 01Robot fails to detect an object in the real environment
  2. 02User adds missing object(s) via the VR interface
  3. 03Virtual robot plans a trajectory; user approves or modifies
  4. 04Real-world robot executes the corrected movement
Analyse dataPresent resultsInterdisciplinary collaborationSupervision

Wozniak, Stower, Jensfelt & Pereira (2023). Happily Error After. RO-MAN.

Study photo from the project “Drone Fail Me Now”

Drones · Trust

Drone Fail Me Now

User study measuring how real-world drone failures affect trust and risk-taking decisions in a navigation game.

User journey
  1. 01Participant navigates a drone using a tablet
  2. 02Drone makes an error displayed on the tablet
  3. 03Participant chooses the next checkpoint (risk-taking)
  4. 04Trust in the drone measured via questionnaire
Study designAnalyse dataPresent resultsSupervision

Rahimzadagan, Vahs, Leite & Stower (2024). HRI 2024 LBR — Honorable Mention.

Study photo from the project “Robot Travel Agent for Multi-Modal HRI”

Social robotics · Multimodal

Robot Travel Agent for Multi-Modal HRI

Fully autonomous travel-planning interaction with the Pepper robot, comparing self-reported attitudes with observed behaviour across multimodal cues.

User journey
  1. 01Greeting, distance calibration, robot offers water
  2. 02Robot asks preferences with backchannelling
  3. 03Robot gives a travel recommendation
  4. 04Closing — wave goodbye
Mixed-methods analysisCross-institutional collaborationMultimodal behaviour coding

Stower et al. (2022). Does what users say match what they do? RO-MAN.

Download the full portfolio (PDF)

Recognition

Awards & recognition

  • 2026

    Key Contributor Award

    Ericsson

    Recognised for cross-functional impact within Design and User Experience.

  • 2024

    TEDx Talk — Facets of AI

    TEDxKTH

    “Nobody's perfect, not even your robot” 

  • 2024

    Honourable Mention — Late-Breaking Report

    ACM/IEEE HRI

    Drone Fail Me Now, for impactful trust-and-risk research.

  • 2018–2021

    Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow

    European Commission

    Selected for the ANIMATAS Innovative Training Network.

Talks

Selected speaking

Events

Industry conferences

  • Apr 2026

    Women in Tech

    Attendee

    Stockholm, Sweden

  • Apr 2026

    Ericsson Developer Conference

    Presenter

    Stockholm, Sweden

  • Nov 2025

    Quantitative UX Conference

    Watch party organiser

    Stockholm, Sweden

  • Mar 2025

    Ericsson Developer Conference

    Presenter

    Stockholm, Sweden

Publications

Selected peer-reviewed work

Full list on Google Scholar(opens in a new tab)

Journal Articles

Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings

* Equal contribution.

Places

Where I've lived

Brisbane, AustraliaBremen, GermanyParis, FranceStockholm, Sweden
  • Brisbane, AustraliaHometown
  • Bremen, Germany2018–2021
  • Paris, France2021–2022
  • Stockholm, Sweden2022–now