Dr. Michelle Poris

Vice President and Quant Savant at Smarty Pants

Speaker

Dr. Michelle Poris is vice president and Quant Savant at Smarty Pants – a human insights-based strategic consultancy. As head of the company’s quantitative research practice, Michelle leverages her 25+ years of research experience designing and executing business-building research for many of the world’s largest brands. She has a gift for identifying the best solutions to meet business objectives and is a master methodologist who ensures work is steeped in high quality sample, insightful data analysis and impactful data-based storytelling.

Prior to Smarty Pants, Michelle was a senior director at The Family Room, where she spent six years building a thriving quantitative research group. Earlier in her career, Michelle was a director at Yankelovich and a research investigator at the non-profit Families and Work Institute.
Michelle has published works in academic journals such as Infant and Child Development and Young Consumers, and she regularly educates marketers and insights professionals on trends and research best practices at national conferences (and even the

White House). She has been an academic advisory board member of the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) and currently serves on the Insights Association’s Accessible Insights Consortium, working to ensure individuals with disabilities have a voice in research.

Michelle earned her B.S. with distinction in Human Development at Cornell University. She went on to pursue a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at the University of Michigan after being awarded a graduate research fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF).