Phil Fawcett, Ph.D.

Overall I am hybrid academic/industry experienced professional with skills as an information scientist, Software Engineer, Entrepreneur, technology manager, and technologist who has worked in the technology sector for over 30+ years, mostly on Microsoft engineering teams and Microsoft Research (MSR). I finished my PhD at the University of Washington (U.W. iSchool, 2017) in Information Science. I also earned my Master of Business Administration from Seattle University with a focus on leadership and earned my BA in business with a focus on accounting and business from Seattle Pacific University.

I have spent the largest portion of my working career at Microsoft in Research and Development (MSR) transferring innovative technology developed in MSR Research labs around the world to Microsoft product groups. During my 30+ year career at Microsoft I have managed large engineering teams, and developed technology focused industry partnerships/relationships between Microsoft and Intel/AMD and others. While working on Microsoft engineering teams, I shipped over twenty-five products as a test engineer, test engineering lead, test manager, technology evangelist, and have managed engineering groups as large as four hundred engineers (400+ engineers/16 direct reports) and worked as a principal technology program manager where I led the conversion of new innovative technologies from basic computer science research labs worldwide into shipping product. I have seven patents granted while working on Microsoft engineering teams.

Most of my academic career and startup work has been on or around the University of Washington, and my teaching and consulting experience has been at the University of Washington (iSchool-Comotion), Washington State University, Oxford University (UK), and at City University. At these educational institutions I’ve have taught business, Entrepreneuring, Human Computer Interaction, Engineering, Capstone/Practicum across undergraduate, masters, and doctoral programs in business, information, and computer science. For the past 5 years I have led and managed over 85 Capstone student teams sponsored by T-Mobile, Amazon, Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco, Costco, and other top tech. companies in the Pacific Northwest and governmental agencies such as King Country Metro, City of Seattle, and King County library systems. In 2021, I taught interactive data visualization, and two sections of Research and Analysis for Information Professionals, MSIM Practicum student (10-week capstone).

In my career, I have also conducted and designed usability interface tests as part of my software test engineering work at Microsoft. I have designed and executed over eighty usability tests using the Microsoft usability testing facilities as well as doing Contextual Inquiry and Focus group fieldwork. My studies helped evaluate newly created Human-Device Interfaces and alternative User Interface concepts for not yet released products/concepts. I have created technology transfer programs from scratch in Microsoft Research working worldwide with top research scientists including a [fields medal winner (quantum computing)] and the inventor of the laser printer] collaborating with researchers at labs in India, China, Europe, and the United States. I have conducted design thinking workshops with immigrant and refugee youth doing community/social prototyping in South Seattle (PhD) and with Industry partners such as Fluke Mfg. in association with Washington State University.

I have taught and designed several engineering and computer science courses at City University in the Doctor of Business Administration program, the Master of Computer Science program, and the undergraduate Computer Science program. At the University of Washington School of Information, I have taught IMT 561 (Data Viz, Spring 19), IMT562 (interactive data visualization, Winter 20, Summer 20, Winter 21, Winter 22), IMT 570 Research and Analysis for Information Professionals (Spring 2021) and Informatics and MSIM Capstone classes (2015-2022). I also have coached/instructed/mentored over eighty-five graduate and undergraduate Capstone student teams and helped recruit and manage Capstone sponsors before/after earning my PhD in Information Science at the University of Washington.

I’m originally from Bremerton, Washington and have lived in the Pacific Northwest all my life. In the Fall of 2022, I moved from a 25-acre farm, thirty miles east of Seattle (Duvall) to Gig Harbor, Washington. I have traveled around the world both for business and for volunteer economic development work in China, India, Europe, Egypt, South America (Peru, Chile), Central America (Mexico, Guatemala), Russia, and Australia.

Many students call me “Dr. Phil” for short. Please connect with me on LinkedIn (99+) Phil Fawcett | LinkedIn during the quarter, so that you can take advantage of some of the contacts in my current 10K LinkedIn Network.