My research investigates how technologies influence human health. I explore the needs of individuals, families, and healthcare providers to first deeply understand these contexts and then create human-centered solutions to help people reach their health-related goals. I have designed together with firefighters, healthcare providers, public health workers, and patients.
Technology Innovator
User Experience Strategist
Human-Computer Interaction Expert
Service Designer & UX Researcher
Social Scientist
Entrepreneur
In my research, I want to know how technology ecosystems (including social media, voice/video calls, online games, music, journals, among many other tools) influence people's self-management of their health.
Mental health focus: My dissertation investigated how people managing depression use technologies for support, particularly how technologies can support collaboration and connection to manage day-to-day mental health. I call this health management work collaborative self-management of depression.
Blog Posts
1. Design Stories from a Health-tech Startup May 22, 2017
2. Changing the stereotype of depression: Rich social interactions, trust & technology use November 11, 2019
3. Intentionally using social media & technology: Stories and strategies from people managing depression May 08, 2020
Critically, understanding people's sociality -- why they make decisions to move between and interact with others within a variety of physical and online spaces -- is essential to learn people's mental health support strategies and challenges. From this contextual understanding, we can develop digital mental health tools and interventions, education, and other solutions to empower individuals to reach their health and life goals in the context of today's digital world.
During my Fulbright year, I earned my Masters in Technology Entrepreneurship at University College London. In my PhD program in Media, Technology & Society at Northwestern University, I studied depression and technology use. Working in the PITCH Lab, I researched and collaborated with care managers and individuals managing depression to support mental healthcare delivery and digital mental health interventions.
I am a health innovator and a human-computer interaction expert tackling big problems using technology. I have user experience research, product management, and service design expertise.
I've co-founded two startups, studied chronic disease management in my Masters and digital mental health for my PhD. At Elevance Health as a Human-Centered Design Sr. Strategist I worked on clinical AI projects, and now at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a Lead Service Designer I focus on reducing the burden of public health data work. See my projects here.
Created “Mask Up” PSA to promote wearing face masks (Jun-July 2020)
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Collaboration with comic artist Alex Cohen (@Tiny Snek Comics)
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Conducted research for informative 4-panel comic to fill gap in information landscape
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Day 1 statistics: Facebook (2.1K likes, 1.5K shares, 130K reach); Instagram (10K likes, 2.9K shares, 69K reach); Twitter (1K likes, 600 retweets, 60K reach)