CHCI Alumni Highlight: Pardha Pyla

Pardha Pyla is the Head of UX, AMOS, Google Cloud at Google. He is an award-winning designer and product strategist with deep expertise in envisioning and delivering industry-leading products and platforms. He was the founding member of multiple thriving product and design (UX) practices that were responsible for producing successful enterprise software solutions in use across many industries. Pardha has received multiple awards for achievements in product development, design, and leadership excellence. He is the co-author (with Rex Hartson) of the award-winning and comprehensive product design textbook—The UX Book 2: Agile UX Design for a Quality User Experience.  He earned his PhD in Computer Science from Virginia Tech in 2007. His dissertation was entitled "Connecting the usability and software engineering life cycles through a communication-fostering software development framework and cross-pollinated computer science courses.” (Advisor: Rex Hartson)

Pardha describes his career after graduation, “After my brief stint in academia I have switched to an industry career. I specialize in designing complex enterprise and cloud platforms, with the goal of democratizing access to these technologies. I have been fortunate to be able to work in areas where complexity and poorly-designed systems are barriers to business success. Designing solutions that are easy to use and efficient allows for companies to focus on what brings them business value rather than wrangling with technology.” He says, “HCI at VT gave me the start and the foundation needed to succeed in my career. The training and mentorship I received while I was there set me up for success ever since.”