Leigh Smith

Leigh Smith is a mixed-methods researcher with 15 years of experience spanning academia, healthcare, and technology. She is currently the Senior Director of Research at Typeform, where she studies the relationship between humans and technology including engagement, trust, loyalty, investment, and long-term satisfaction.

Leigh's research background includes appointments at Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, and Rutgers University, where her work focused on social relationships, human evaluation, preference formation, and shared experiences. She holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of California, Davis, and has taught research methods and statistics at the university level for 7 years.

At her core, Leigh considers herself a mixed-methods researcher who values creativity and innovation just as much as rigor. While grounded in traditional quantitative and qualitative approaches, she believes that many of the methods researchers now consider foundational only exist because someone was willing to challenge convention, experiment, and develop something new.