PEOPLE

Dr. Wanda Pratt

Wanda Pratt is a Professor in the Information School with an adjunct appointment in Biomedical & Health Informatics in the Medical School at the University of Washington. She received her Ph.D. in Medical Informatics from Stanford University, and her M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Texas. Her research focuses on understanding patients needs and designing new technologies to address those needs. She has worked with people coping with a variety of chronic diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, asthma, and heart disease. Dr. Pratt has received best paper awards from the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, and the Journal of the American Society of Information Science & Technology (JASIS&T). Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, Intel, and Microsoft. Dr. Pratt is a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics.

students

Elena Agapie

Elena Agapie is a Ph.D. candidate in the Human Centered Design and Engineering program at the University of Washington. Elena researches, designs and builds technologies to help people  engage in positive health behaviors through a human centered approach. Elena’s work draws on people’s lived experiences and expert practices to support the implementation of evidence based behavioral interventions, such as mental health therapies or exercise guidelines. Elena’s research informs understanding on how technology can support healthy behaviors, and can be designed to support new ways of delivering interventions using technology.

Calvin Apodaca

Calvin Richard Apodaca is a 3rd year Ph.D. student in Biomedical and Health Informatics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. His research focuses on how new consumer technologies can be used to make pediatric medicine safer and become a more social experience. A research associate on Dr. Wanda Pratt’s Patients as Safeguards grant, Calvin has worked to implement several experimental websites and applications designed to make patient care more transparent at Virginia Mason and Seattle Children’s Hospital. A graduate of California State University Northridge’s NIH-funded diversity and scholarship program, BUILD PODER, Calvin hopes to help foster a more diverse, representative biomedical workforce in academia. He also loves Dungeons and Dragons and plays the ukulele.

Erin Beneteau

Erin Beneteau is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Information School at the University of Washington. She is a certified speech-language pathologist (SLP) and is specialized in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). As an SLP, she has worked with people as young as two up to people in their 80’s. Prior to coming to the iSchool, Erin worked most recently as a senior instructional designer. She has worked in public schools, non-profits, skilled nursing facilities, hospitals and in the tech industry across North America, New Zealand and Europe. Erin’s doctoral research is focused on how access to creative pursuits using assistive technologies impacts people’s communication, identity, health and quality of life.

Arpita Bhattacharya

Arpita Bhattacharya is a PhD candidate in Human Centered Design and Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. Arpita’s research interests are in using mixed methods to design, develop, and evaluate technologies to support people in examining their individual contexts and increase the control they perceive in taking steps towards mental and social wellbeing. Her dissertation research focuses on designing and developing online group interventions informed by clinically proven therapy techniques for teenagers who are navigating challenges with stress and depression. Arpita enjoys teaching research methods, and wants to keep learning to adapt methods that can increase access for marginalized communities to participate in HCI research. In 2015, Arpita completed her Master’s in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology where she worked on designing motion-based games to scaffold social support in classrooms for children who have autism. 

Web page: http://students.washington.edu/arpitab/

Lisa Dirks

Lisa G. Dirks, Ph.D. student, is Unangax^ (Aleut) from Atka, Alaska. She has over 15 years of tribal health research and evaluation experience on diverse social science and health services research projects in rural and urban Alaska. Her current research interests include health informatics and community-engaged health research results dissemination, particularly the use of technology to facilitate collaborative results dissemination with Indigenous communities. She is also a member of the iNative research group. Visit Lisa’s website at: lgdirks.com. 

Julia Dunbar

Julia Dunbar is a Ph.D. student in the Information School at the University of Washington, advised by Dr. Wanda Pratt. Julia’s research is broadly set in the domains of health informatics and human computer interaction and focuses on the design and development of digital tools to better support the transition period from pediatric to an adult patient, with a grounding in the following three pillars of being an athlete: 1) team-oriented, 2) goal driven, and 3) supportive. Prior to coming to the UW’s iSchool, Julia received her undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Siena College. Julia’s personal website is coming soon.

Maher Khelifi

Maher Khelifi is a pharmacist and a PhD candidate in Biomedical and Health Informatics. He leverages his mixed background and set of skills to solve health related challenges with innovative, inclusive, and intuitive solutions. During his Ph.D research, Maher lead several research efforts applying HCI methodologies to generate design guidelines for patient-centered technologies. Maher studies the implementation of AI agents to augment the conversation between patients and doctors. In addition to that, Maher has a passion for entrepreneurship and works on taking research ideas from lab to market.

Sonali Mishra

Sonali Mishra is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Information School at the University of Washington. Sonu’s doctoral research focuses on the design of technologies to support patient engagement in the hospital. Prior to coming to the iSchool, Sonu earned her master’s degree in HCI at the University of Michigan School of Information, and worked as a UX designer at the University of Michigan Libraries.

Annuska Zolyomi

Annuska researches the ways socio-technical systems present both access and barriers to people with disabilities, especially those with autism spectrum disorder. As a Ph.D. Candidate in the Information School at the University of Washington, she engages with the autism community using a Community Based Participatory Research framework. Annuska’s doctoral research is informed by her prior work at Microsoft on accessible technology and her Masters in Human-Centered Design and Engineering.

Collaborators

Yoojung Kim

Yoojung Kim is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology (GSCST) at Seoul National University. Since Yoojung joined the iMed research group as a visiting student in 2018, she has participated in the research on patient’s safety. Yoojung’s research focuses on designing and evaluating technologies for data-driven communication between healthcare providers and patients. Yoojung earned bachelor’s degrees in Humanities Studies and Social Science and a master’s degree in HCI from Seoul National University. Visit Yoojung’s personal website at yoojung.kim.

Ari Pollack, MD MSIM

Ari Pollack is an Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Nephrology, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical education. His research interests focus on helping patients and clinicians contextualize medical information through information visualization tools. He currently currently has funding from the NIH to explore how information technology can improve outcomes for children and adolescents who have had a kidney transplant. His prior work experience includes time at Seattle Children’s Hospital working on its electronic health record and developing novel interfaces to improve clinician workflows as well as a general pediatrician in Redmond, Washington. In 2014, Dr. Pollack was part of the first group of clinicians to become board certified in Clinical Informatics. He obtained his BS and MA in Biology from University of California, Los Angeles, his MD degree from Tulane University, and his Masters in Information Management from the UW Information School.

Temporary iMed Student

Emily Bascom

Emily Bascom is an undergraduate Pre-Sciences student pursuing an intended major in Informatics at the University of Washington. She is interested in the field of Psychoinformatics, as well as the development of technology that provides greater user autonomy and mitigates psychological damage on users. Emily has also participated in research with the User Empowerment Lab at the UW Information School that involved understanding users’ perceptions of microphone security on smart devices with the goal of enhancing industry design guidelines, ultimately improving user comprehension of audio data capturing capabilities. Emily is on the Husky Alpine Ski Team and enjoys all things related to being outside.

Cezanne Lane

Cezanne is a junior pre-med undergraduate studying biology. She has a persistent interest in healthcare practices, access, and health determinants. Her academic focus is driven by an interest in the many nuances of human experience. Some less academic ways in which Cezanne has pursued learning include selling fruit at farmers markets in the greater Seattle area, working at the UW climbing gym and guiding backpacking trips for UWILD. She is committed to supporting individuals’ needs while also addressing the need for widespread systematic change. Cezanne is volunteering with the UnBiased project under Wanda Pratt’s mentorship. 

Rayna Tilley

Rayna Tilley is a junior informatics major in the Information School at the University of Washington where she’s focusing on data science and human computer interaction. Fueling her academic goals is the desire to draw meaning from data in order to inform society about the problems the world is facing. Specifically, she is working on Dr. Wanda Pratt’s Patients as Safeguards grant, which focuses on creating a transparent relationship between patients and doctors, as a data analyst. She has also participated in research with the Beck Research Lab at the University of Washington that focused on antibiotic resistance genes and how plasmids can exchange specific genes to form mosaic plasmids. Rayna has spent two years working at the Boeing company as a cybersecurity intern focusing on designing applications that organized and analyzed log data. She is an active member of Phi Sigma Rho and spends her time learning to snowboard and sail.

Jessica Schroeder

Jessica Schroeder is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Paul G Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, advised by James Fogarty and Sean Munson.  Jessie’s doctoral research focuses on designing, developing and evaluating novel methods and tools to help people and their health providers better understand and manage their personal health. She completed her undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Pomona College.

Regina Casanova-Perez, MS

Regina Casanova-Perez is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in Biomedical and Health Informatics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a Master’s degree in Biomedical Informatics from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (Lima, Peru). Regina is very passionate about the importance of User Experience (UX) in healthcare and how it can be used to ease and empower patients, especially members of the LGTBQ and/or Latinx populations. She is also part of Andrea Hartzler’s Lab at UW BIME, where she has previously worked on enhancing physical activity in older adults. She speaks fluent Spanish and basic Italian. Her hobbies include watching TV shows, going to the cinema and reading fiction novels.