Lisa Fast

AI & UX architect, designer and researcher

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Lisa Fast bridges code and cognition. Armed with an M.Sc. in Computer Science (psychology of programming), she's spent 30+ years in UX design, architecture and research. Her focus: fixing the gap between how systems are built and how people actually use them.

At Nortel Networks, she became a 'UX Unicorn': designer, prototyper, usability researcher, product manager and design lead, rolled into one. She then shifted to academic cognitive research at Carleton University, digging into mathematical cognition at Carleton University.

Since 2009, she's facilitated 1,000+ hours of behavioural research and led design projects for major Canadian government programs. Now consulting part-time with the Government of Canada, Lisa is UX/AI architect for Canada.ca's AI Answers service.

She holds a technology patent, and her early career publications are listed on interaction-design.org.

Lisa's current work sits at the intersection where government accountability, cognitive science, and emerging AI services meet.

Speaker experience: Forward50 (Canada), User Experience Professionals Association (USA), CanUX (CANADA), Information Architecture Summit (USA), Service Design in Government (UK)

Podcast appearance: The Functional Government Podcast, youtube, 2025

Follow Lisa on Linked In and Github @lisafast