Elizabeth Morin-Lessard, PhD

User Research @ Elastic | Mixed Methods Advocate; Quantitative Specialist

Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

About

Hi – Bonjour! I'm a researcher with a Ph.D. in Psychology and 14+ years of research experience. I love to solve hard problems with great people. In my work, I use various tools and both quantitative and qualitative data to better understand human behaviour, and specialize in uncovering key user needs and preferences to deliver actionable recommendations for leadership and product teams. Skills & tools: Psychology (Cognition, Language, Behaviour), communication & team work, formulating research questions, hypothesis & A/B testing, coding (R, SQL), survey design, interviewing, data analysis & synthesis, statistics (e.g. t-tests, ANOVA, regression), data visualization & storytelling, eye-tracking technology. To read about my experience from academia to tech: https://medium.com/@elizabethml/ Open Science Framework (OSF) publications: https://osf.io/vmiwg/ Google Scholar - for all my research publications: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=rj2SUukAAAAJ&hl=en ADPList [*apologies -- currently not available for sessions with new mentees]: https://adplist.org/mentors/elizabeth-morin-lessard Pronouns: she/her/hers Languages: French, English, Spanish (conversational)

Experience

  • Elastic ()
    • Senior UX Researcher
      May 2025 - Present · 1 yr 3 mos

      • Spearheading UX Research democratization efforts at Elastic • Awarded the Engineering Outstanding Contribution Award for sustained contributions (May 2025) • Women of Elastic ERG Co-Lead (January 2026–present)

    • UX Researcher II
      Feb 2024 - May 2025 · 1 yr 4 mos

      • Leading multi-method end-to-end user research initiatives for Elastic Observability • Conducting research on developer tools for technical users to enhance functionality, usability, and overall user experience • Making user research insights accessible to stakeholders at all levels and across various functions • Awarded the Elastic Engineering Award (December 2024)

  • Shareholder at Time for the Planet
    Aug 2022 - Present · 4 yrs

    Time for the Planet is a non-profit company raising €1 billion to create 100 companies that will address climate change. Anyone can become a shareholder. Let's act together! www.time-planet.com

  • Heyday by Hootsuite (3 yrs)
    • Senior User Researcher II
      Mar 2022 - Jan 2024 · 1 yr 11 mos

    • Senior User Researcher
      May 2021 - Mar 2022 · 11 mos

      • Leading user research initiatives on the Conversational AI Product team • Developing and executing the UX research vision, mission, and roadmap at Heyday by Hootsuite • Advocating for users via mixed-methods research and using data from multiple data sources • Specializing in quantitative research and tools to understand user behaviour and product use • Leveraging large datasets of logs data to identify product adjustments and opportunities • Improving the conversational AI + UX via evaluative & generative remote research • Delivering actionable insights to cross-functional stakeholders to inform senior leadership and strategic decisions • Democratizing user research for stakeholders across multiple levels and functions

    • UX Researcher
      Feb 2021 - Apr 2021 · 3 mos

      • Spearheading research initiatives as the first research hire at the startup, delivering impactful insights and helping shape crucial decisions for product development and growth • Formulating research questions aligned with business goals and the product roadmap • Planning and proposing research to improve the UX and usability of the chatbot & conversational AI • Conducting research and analyzing + synthesizing user data and translating insights to stakeholders • Advising on design iterations and future research directions to improve the UX and product

  • University of Calgary (2 yrs 7 mos)
    • Postdoctoral Researcher
      Nov 2018 - May 2021 · 2 yrs 7 mos

      Language and Cognitive Development Lab

    • Workshop Facilitator: R programming
      Jun 2019 - Jun 2019 · 1 mo

  • Concordia University (5 yrs 3 mos)
    • Doctoral Researcher
      Sep 2013 - Oct 2018 · 5 yrs 2 mos

      • Award: Doctoral Dissertation Certificate of Academic Excellence (Aug. 2019; Canadian Psychological Association) • Focus area: Developmental Psychology, Cognition, Language Acquisition, Language Development

    • Course Instructor
      Sep 2017 - Dec 2017 · 4 mos

      • Course: Fundamentals of Lifespan Development • Taught a course bi-weekly to a class of 90 undergraduate students.

    • Teaching Assistant: Statistics & Research Methods
      Aug 2013 - Apr 2014 · 9 mos

      • Course: Statistical Analysis • Taught a course weekly to a class of 32 university students.