Our Team

Lyman Casey, Ph.D.

Co-founder & Partner

With an extensive background in Cognitive Psychology, interface design and business strategy, Lyman Casey brings a broad and pragmatic perspective to our work at Centralis.

Prior to co-founding Centralis, Lyman served as Director of User Experience at the leading Chicago e-commerce integrator Giant Step, now part of Publicis Groupe. In that role, he established the company's User Experience practice and built a team recognized as a leader by industry analysts such as Forrester Research. His prior technology experience includes the design and development of custom expert systems software for Fortune 500 clients.

Lyman holds a doctorate in Cognitive Psychology from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree from Williams College. In his free time, Lyman is a gadget hound, a runner, and most of all a doting dad.

Kathi Kaiser

Co-founder & Partner

Whether she’s observing transit riders decipher schedules, watching people do their laundry or hiding out with an undercover money-laundering investigation unit, Kathi Kaiser brings an analytical eye and infectious enthusiasm to her work at Centralis. As a researcher and designer, Kathi leads the Centralis team in creating great user experiences across a variety of contexts.

Kathi’s experience in human-computer interaction spans ten years and includes engagements at notable user experience firms HannaHodge and Doblin Group. She is an authority on user-centered design who often speaks at leading industry events such as the Usability Professionals Association annual meeting. Kathi holds a master's degree in Social Science from the University of Chicago and a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Georgetown University.

When out of the office, Kathi can often be found with her family and friends, listening to ‘80s music or cheering on the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

Elizabeth Benker

User Experience Director

Elizabeth Benker is an accomplished designer and tenacious advocate for user needs. Her expertise spans all areas of application design, including needs analysis, user research, requirements engineering, information architecture, interaction design and prototyping. She has worked on projects ranging from a $300M tactical redesign of a multi-channel web-based policy administration system for a Fortune 500 company to a $0 budget web site redesign project for a local non-profit.

Elizabeth joined Centralis after working as an Information Architect in the financial services and insurance industries. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University and a Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction from DePaul University. She speaks and publishes on issues of user-centered design, most recently as a presenter to the Usability Professionals' Association.

Matthew Scholl

Senior User Experience Specialist

Matthew Scholl has extensive experience partnering with clients to create solutions that balance user needs with client business objectives. Whether facilitating usability tests, conducting contextual user research or designing wireframes, he is a patient, careful observer and is persistent in his pursuit of detailed, actionable findings and recommendations.

Prior to joining Centralis, Matt spent 10 years at Accenture in roles including product manager and user experience consultant. He has worked on both consumer-facing websites and business-to-business web applications and his past clients include software manufacturers, insurance companies, and electronics manufacturers. He holds a Masters degree in Human Computer Interaction from the University of Michigan and a BS in Education from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Jennifer Canady

User Experience Specialist

Jennifer Canady brings a broad background in film, radio, marketing and sales to Centralis' user experience team. On initiatives for both corporations and non-profits, Jenni is a talented research facilitator and a tireless advocate for user needs. When she’s not working to build the best possible user experience, she can be found prototyping iPhone apps, researching augmented reality, or collaboratively writing a book chapter about virtual collaboration.