Gentry Underwood
Jedi Master, IDEO

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Gentry is leading the Knowledge Sharing project at IDEO. Gentry is a human factors specialist with a background in visual ethnography, psychology, and interaction design. Trained at Stanford, Santa Clara University, and the Peabody School at Vanderbilt, Gentry brings a diverse body of knowledge and experience to his field work.

Prior to IDEO, Gentry had worked as an interaction designer for Reactivity, Inc, London Road Design, and as a private contractor. He worked as an adult, family, child, and school counselor in the San Francisco Bay area, and has made two short documentary films, one of which aired on the nationally syndicated show Democracy Now.

Gentry relies on his counseling experience when in the field to get to the heart of the “why” behind people’s experiences. He is a glutton for the power of visual imagery to capture and communicate aspects of others’ worlds, and he brings his design background into the IDEO process to help move from observation to synthesis.