Derryfield taught me perseverance and adaptability, which have positively impacted me in my future endeavors. I even think that those two particular skills are the key to life.
Victor Jialang Li always aspired to make the world a better place through design and research. He initially thought he would pursue robotics engineering, inspired by observations of human struggle. Li has translated his early experiences with mobility into a successful career.
Li began his education at the University of California in Santa Cruz. Initially focusing on robotics engineering, he later switched to intensive research psychology, with a focus on user experience (UX). UX is the study of learning what end users of a system or product need and want, then employing those insights to enhance the design process for businesses, products, services or software.
Throughout his time at UC Santa Cruz, Li interned as a project manager at Didi Chuxing Technology, a company in Beijing, China which serves the mobility needs of customers through food delivery, taxi services, and much more. Li was also a research assistant to Professor Leila Takayama, the scientist who helped build the robot that starred in the hit television show Big Bang Theory. During his time under Professor Takayama, Li helped to design the interface of a website that promotes research opportunities for college students. He also worked under Professor Katherine Isbister and Professor Josh McVeigh-Schultz at the Social Emotional Technology Lab. At this lab Li researched social superpowers through VR (Virtual Reality).
After graduating in 2021, Li was accepted into a master’s program in human computer interaction at the Santa Clara campus of UC Santa Cruz.During that program he completed two corporate capstone projects in the UX field for Mastercard and Trust Financial.
After graduating in 2022, Li began to work for Zoox as a UX Researcher. Zoox, an independent subsidiary of Amazon, creates self-driving cars, and is on a mission to revolutionize mobility. Zoox cars are purpose-built self-driving robot taxis with no manual steering wheels, manual brakes, or
gas pedals.
When he is not working, Li’s passions are spending time with his family, photography, and driving cars around race tracks across California.
