Who we are.
Human-Centered Researchers and Advisors
We’re social researchers who believe that properly understanding what drives people to behave as they do in the full context of their lived experience, with the goal of delivering value to the individual, leads an organization to bond with the individual, and vice versa.
Where there’s a bond, you’re more than the last experience someone has with you. You matter.
We want you to matter.
Our full team includes a network of anthropologists, sociologists, and data science professionals, trained on the nuance of the human experience and how people come to trust and invest in others, as well as how they come to trust and invest in concepts, organizations, and institutions. Below are the principals that lead our research and advisory teams.
CRAIG HONICK
Founder +
Principal Advisor
Craig is an applied ethnographer and veteran marketing and organizational change consultant. For more than 25 years he has surfaced and reconstructed the narratives that individuals and groups use to guide their daily choices. With this insight, he has helped corporations, non-profits, and government agencies successfully position their brands, products, and services to customers as well as their own employees in a way that optimizes value to all parties.
Early in his career, while a UCLA-based researcher, Craig gained unique access to conduct an ethnographic study which helped the Los Angeles Police Department interpret the narratives of patrol officers and the public as it attempted to shift from a “command and control” to a “community policing” brand. He introduced several methodological innovations to this project and through two decades of consulting practice has honed those innovations to create the foundation for how the Good People Research Company uncovers the genesis of group behavior.
His recent human-centered work includes group narrative insight projects for Microsoft, Pearson, the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the Northeast Dairy Innovation Center, GO Virginia Region 9, and multiple consumer brand companies.
Craig also has a special interest in higher education and career development. He completed doctoral training in the Division of Higher Education and Organizational Change at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. While there, Craig co-taught a popular course, “The Social Psychology of Higher Education” and authored one of the only historical accounts of for-profit vocational education in the United States.
Craig is a mentor in the iLab, a startup incubator operated within the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia by the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology, and is also a Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce.
Craig guides the vision of the The Good People Research Company, is the primary designer of research, and is the principal advisor to clients.
ALEX STRUMINGER
Sr. Advisor
Alex is a digital media strategist with experience in organizational development and digital storytelling. He was Senior Advisor for Strategic Internet Projects at United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), where he worked with a successful Webby award-winning team on content strategy and technology platforms for nearly a decade. His experience includes digital media and content management technologies.
Alex has been a speaker and guest lecturer at several United Nations agencies, the Createasphere DAM conference, Henry Stewart
DAM NY conference, the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia, the Asian Development Bank in Manila, the City University of New York and the Rhode Island School of Design.
He has worked with diverse clients including AARP, UNICEF, Pfizer, AT&T, the US Department of Commerce, Accenture, the RAND Corporation and the CUNY Institute for Software Design and Development.
Alex guides The Good People Research Company efforts to present its learning to clients and the public.
JIM MARTINDALE
Data Scientist + Psychometrician
Jim is an applied statistician, psychometrician, researcher, and evaluator with 20 years of experience designing, implementing and analyzing social and clinical science studies.
Jim’s methodological interests include multivariate statistical modeling, construct development, permutation statistics, analysis of very small and very large data sets, and non-traditional approaches to statistical interpretation.
Jim is also an Associate Professor of Medical Education and Test Development at the University of Virginia Medical School.
He holds a PhD in Educational Research from the University of Virginia.
Jim guides The Good People Research Company’s process of validating an modeling themes in human behavior discovered through the company’s rigorous ethnographic approach to understanding group motivation and behavior.
ELIZABETH SHOCH
Sr. Researcher + Analyst
Liz is a seasoned researcher, analyst and project coordinator.
Prior to working with The Good People Research Company, Liz worked as an independent project management consultant for corporate clients, and before that, spent eight years at GreenBlue, an industry-facing sustainability nonprofit based in Charlottesville, Virginia, serving as Assistant Director of GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition, an industry working group of 150-member companies promoting sustainable packaging solutions.
Managing and completing a multi-year research grant from the State of California at GreenBlue expanded her expertise on global recycling systems and helped guide CalRecycle staff to connect policy to packaging design and beneficial packaging recovery options.
Liz was previously Invasive Species Program Specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey and Program Coordinator for the Global Invasive Species Initiative at The Nature Conservancy. She has also consulted on issues relating to both non-native invasive species and migratory species for the Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America.
She holds a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a Masters in Environmental Management from Duke University.
Liz manages large scale projects for The Good People Research Company and participates directly in both primary and secondary data collection and analysis.
AIDYN MANCENIDO
Sr. Anthropologist
Aidyn is a cultural anthropologist and artist. She received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Virginia, where she has taught as a lecturer over the last several years. She also holds an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago.
Her research includes gender and sexual politics, applied anthropology, experimental ethnography, and creative activism.
Her professional work includes research- and art-based consulting; research-based, strategy development in community engagement for the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation; direction of the Charlottesville Human Rights Commission; and non-profit work in gender and sexual violence.
Aidyn serves as a lead researcher on The Good People Research Company projects focused on the public interest, nonprofits, and mission-based brands.