Milad Yavari

I love working with a cross-functional team of scientists, engineers, and designers on a daily basis to create solutions for real life problems. To use data to make people lives safer, healthier and more convenient. 

I provide expertise from behavioral science rooted from years of academic research, clinical practice and working with various innovative tech companies. I also have experience in market research, user research and product discovery leveraging complex data into insights and strategies. Implementing knowledge of behavioral design into end-to-end products and services. 

My passion is to transform scientific knowledge into digital services and products that use new technologies and drive behavior change.

February 2022 – September 2022

Behavioral Product Manager ● Sentiance 

• Led product discovery for a digital product, delivering a comprehensive roadmap that paved the way for its successful development and launch.
• Designed and conducted interviews with internal and external stakeholders to collect insights and improve products.
• Guided cross-functional design and engineering teams in implementing user personas into the product specification and user journey of a client-facing insight dashboard, resulting in a highly tailored and effective product.
• Leveraged deep knowledge of company’s technology and expertise in human behavior to identify emerging opportunities and provided critical insights that guided successful product development initiatives. 
• Collaborated closely with cross-functional teams, including sales and design, to offer insights on user psychology and behavior change, ultimately driving the development of highly effective and engaging product experiences.

October 2019 - February 2022

Behavioral Scientist ● Sentiance 

• Principle behavior scientist in design, development and evaluation of a digital coaching mobile application resulted in significant reduction of risk behavior (i.e., distracted driving) in coaching group compared to control.
• Designed and directed a randomized controlled trial to investigate the impact of interventions that showed 60% of users decreased risk behavior > 50%.
• Collaborated closely with cross-functional teams to create a Behavior Action Engine that streamlined the design and back-end functions of behavioral change campaigns for client mobile applications, to ensure seamless automation and optimization.
• Transformed behavior change models into cutting-edge digital behavioral features, conceptualizing behavioral scores that facilitated behavioral monitoring, goal tracking, and engagement.
• Advanced "User Location Permission" playbook with behavioral insights which helped clients to boost their opt-in rates.
• Diagnosed and recommended UX improvement for internal tools that resulted in faster testing and troubleshooting.
• Put forward blog and social media posts that helped company's visibility and brought more leads.

September 2012 - October 2019

Applied Clinical Scientist ● Applied Exercise Physiology Lab (U of A) 

• Led multiple clinical trials, gaining deep expertise in study design, data collection and analysis, and regulatory compliance which has translated into strong skills in project management, data-driven decision making, and the ability to work within strict timelines.
• Collected, analyzed, and managed complex data sets from multi-sensor wearables and exercise tests, honing my skills in data analytics, visualization, and interpretation. 
• Providing domain expert consultation on the development of an R package to transform and summarize data from a multi-sensor activity tracker. This experience has taught me the importance of clear communication, collaboration across teams, and the ability to translate technical requirements to non-technical stakeholders.
• Presented and published results of research 

June 2018 – July 2019 ● Health-Technology Consultant ● Synaptiq.ai 

• Translated domain expert knowledge for technical and design teams during creation and prototyping of a scalable cardiac rehabilitation coaching platform.
• Conducted technology analysis on commercial wearables for data collection during pilot trial. 
• Led market research and analyzed user insights for development of coaching strategies to improve clinical outcomes and engagement.

August 2017- January 2018 ● Research & Development Freelancer ● Shapa Health 

• Formulated domain expertise to design and optimize machine learning systems, enabling more effective user targeting and personalized coaching.
• Reviewed and analyzed related literature to recommend evidence-based coaching advice, creating a personalized user    experience that drove strong engagement and positive outcomes to master integration of research into product.

• Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Sciences /University of Alberta (U of A)
• Master of Rehabilitation and Physical Therapy in Internal Disorders /Katholieke Universiteit Leuven  
• Certification of Applied Behavioral Design