We are sociologists with academic backgrounds and decades of experience doing ethnography for corporations.
Our field leads are academically trained ethnographers—every one holds at least a master’s degree in a social science that relies on ethnography. That scholarship translates into best-practice rigor, deep cultural theory, and rock-solid research ethics, so findings are framed in context and ready for confident decision-making.
Our team has diverse interests, experiences, and backgrounds that help us to spot nuances others miss and build a holistic picture of what’s happening on the ground—and why it matters to your organization.
The same tight-knit team that scopes your study collects the data and delivers the insights. We only take on projects that we can execute flawlessly, and hold ourselves to exacting standards.
From recruitment to reporting, our workflow is battle-tested. Clear sampling criteria, rigorous field protocols, and collaborative analysis sprints turn raw observation into actionable narratives fast—giving you reliable insight without the endless delays.
Ethnography isn’t a trend we’ve tacked on—it’s our core. While full-service agencies juggle dozens of methodologies, we have spent years refining just one. That singular focus means deeper immersion, sharper insights, and a level of craft you simply won’t find elsewhere.
President and CEO
When Melinda Rea-Holloway isn’t picking the meat out of her pizza, she is the company’s President and CEO. Melinda is an impeccable ethnographer, masterful at the long interview. She’s a specialist in health care issues, gender and kids. Before we started the company, Melinda taught at the university level, and since, she’s used her teaching experience to help lead hard-hitting, fast-paced presentations and entertaining, fruitful workshops on ethnography. Melinda’s training includes both sociology and psychology—she links micro and macro perspectives to bring out the strategic value of ethnography.
Melinda’s fieldwork has included the following topics: oral care, hair loss, baby care, kids’ entertainment, animal health, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, car buying, notions of health/illness, central venous catheter insertion, physicians’ daily life, high end electronics sales, lupus, division of labor and household chores, breakfast among college students, allergies, overactive bladder, epilepsy, restless leg syndrome, banking, kitchens, eating on the go, tourism, minivans, contact lenses, chronic pain, teenage gamers, big box retail, shopping for household necessities, gardening, promotional product sales, and facial hygiene. Who hasn’t she talked to? Melinda has conducted fieldwork in Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, the Philippines, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Japan, Colombia, the UK, and the US.
Director of Operations
When Shalonda Espy-Johnson isn’t complaining about her Mexican food, she is keeping this ship afloat as the company’s Director of Operations.
Shalonda, who lives in Kansas City, is a force to be reckoned with. She makes sure things happen when they need to and she takes care of our folks in the field. She runs our operations with her eye for detail and her oodles of good business sense. She can do just about anything, and she does it all really, really, really well.
Ethnographer
When Kazuyo Masuda, MA, isn’t trying to match Mexican food with a bottle of Italian wine, she does fieldwork and heads up projects. She has conducted ethnography in Australia, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, the Philippines, Spain, Taiwan, and the US.
Kazuyo, who lives in Boston, has two, yes two, Master’s degrees: one in Sociology and one in Communications. She has worked in a number of subject areas, including social welfare, gender issues, race and ethnic relations, stereotypes in mass media, retail and in-home ethnography, women’s health, and medical research, including clinical trials. She has contributed a sociological perspective to medical research at Dartmouth Medical School and has worked extensively in the health arena for a variety of companies and around a variety of illnesses and woes: even pet health.
Although she has been known to be a taskmaster and has been feared by our fieldworkers in the past, she has mellowed in more recent years.