Alex Rudnicki

Research and strategy for complex human systems.

Leadership

Northern Illinois University · Project Launch · Professional Mentor

Leading career development for NIU psychology students.

Lead workshops and 1:1 mentorship for NIU psychology students through career planning and early-career decisions.

About

Portrait of Alex Rudnicki

I’m a researcher and strategist with a background in psychology, HCI, accessibility, and human-AI interaction. I thrive in complex, multidisciplinary environments where teams are still making sense of the problem: a workflow breaking across handoffs, a model behaving unpredictably, an access barrier built into a system, or a question that needs clearer evidence before teams can move with confidence.

I use mixed-methods research to turn ambiguity into strategy, mapping how people interact with systems, identifying where experiences break down, and translating findings into decisions teams can act on. My work connects research, product strategy, accessibility, and systems-level thinking.

My background in ASL and Deaf Studies shaped how I think about access: not as accommodation, but as infrastructure. The best systems are designed so people can understand them, trust them, and use them without carrying the burden of the system’s gaps.

Perspectives

  • Accessibility is infrastructure

    Systems work better when disabled people shape them from the start. Accessibility is infrastructure for systems people can understand, trust, and use.

  • Models are not the whole experience

    Benchmarks show what a model can do. Research shows whether people can understand it, recover from failure, and trust it in use.

  • Exclusion is a systems problem

    When interfaces, workflows, and handoffs fail to connect, people are left to fill the gaps. Accessibility depends on the whole system supporting it.

Contact

Building something complex?

Open to collaborations and conversations around complex systems, accessibility, and human-AI interaction.

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