Ivayana Abdi
Research Impact Lead
Previously at
Culturati Research & Consulting
Based in San Francisco
In one line
In market research since 2017, facility floor to project manager
Goes deep on
- Project management
- Hybrid research
- Study design
Ivayana Abdi runs the fieldwork most people never see, and the industry has started handing her awards for it.
Ivayana started in market research in 2017 on the client services desk of a research facility and worked her way up to project manager. At Culturati Research & Consulting, the cross-cultural insights firm, she was group manager for research operations and logistics: recruitment, platform vetting, fieldwork and client management, with a multicultural lens on all of it. She is a RIVA-trained moderator, a 2025 recipient of the QRCA’s Lloyd J. Harris Memorial Scholarship, and the Market Research Institute International’s Diversity Award recipient for 2026.
Her line on that award says a lot about how she works: diversity in research is not just about identity, it includes different paths into the industry, varied professional backgrounds, and a range of perspectives. She came in through one of those paths.
At Conveo, in San Francisco, she runs the diary-study practice: multi-day studies where participants come back again and again, and where her participant management keeps drop-off to a handful out of hundreds. She joined for the hybrid researcher model, agile with new methods and fluent in the traditional ones, and gets the most out of clients who are excited to try new things.
Outside work she is at home with her baby, which means a lot of kid TV, or streaming the latest horror film. True crime and horror are her thing: why do people think this way, how did they become who they are. There is, she admits, a link.
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Transcribed from the film and lightly edited for length and clarity. Click a timestamp to hear that answer.
My name is Ivayana. I'm from San Francisco. I started in market research back in 2017, in client services. I started essentially running a facility at the front desk and I worked my way all the way up to project manager there.
I came across Conveo, honestly, just on LinkedIn. I've always been the type of person to want to know what's going on in tech, what's going on in market research, and to be part of the upcoming innovation. So AI-moderated research was definitely on my radar.
Right now we're having a hackathon, where we are literally working with engineers to build out some new features that we, as research impact leads, are thinking of. That's something that's really unique to Conveo. You can't do that anywhere. You can't just say, oh, I have an idea, and have them say, yeah, let's make it work. That's been really cool to witness and to be a part of.
My favorite client moment has been pretty recent: working with a new research team at one specific company. They're young, they're fresh, they're hungry for insights and ideas. Working hand in hand with them to design a better platform experience, using their feedback to build a better study for them. They're very open to trying new things.
Any time you work with a client that's excited to take on the research, excited to try new things, and has all of these great ideas, you're showing them that the new way of research is this hybrid researcher: someone who is agile to new methods, but can also use some of those traditional methods and combine them. I think that's the power of Conveo, and that's why I joined as well.
Outside of work, I will probably be at home. I have a baby, so we usually watch a lot of kid TV shows. And I'm really into movies, so you'll probably find me streaming the latest horror movie. True crime and horror, that's my thing. I like to tap into the psyche: why do they think this way, how did they grow up to become who they are. So I guess there's a link.
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On conveo.ai
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Getting to know Ivayana.
“At home. I have a baby, so we usually watch a lot of kid TV shows. And I'm really into movies: true crime and horror.”
“At home. I have a baby, so we usually watch a lot of kid TV shows. And I'm really into movies: true crime and horror.”
In Ivayana’s words
More researchers
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