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About Me | |
I live in Seattle and love the northwest. I like the trees, the
mountains, the water –the whole thing. I was born in Albuquerque,
NM, but I grew up in Portland, OR and graduated from Beaverton
High School. Then I moved to Seattle and got a BS in Informatics
at the University of
Washington. I’m currently a PhD student, still at UW, studying
Biomedical and Health Informatics (for more on that see What I Study
below or my Research
page).  One of the many reasons I love the northwest is the lush plant life. I have fun taking pictures of the flowers and the scenery in Washington, and occasionally in Oregon. I also have a photography website at nikongal.com you can look at. Sometimes I even get to go camping or backpacking and always have tons of fun. There’s nothing like a couple bug bites and a little sunburn to remind you how much fun you had last weekend. This picture is Scott and I on Naches Peak Loop overlooking Dewey Lake, where we spent a weekend last summer. | |
Other Fun Websites | |
| Scott Saponas's
Photography Christopher Gooley's Photography | |
What I Study | |
| I find that when I meet people and tell them I am a PhD student
in Biomedical and Health Informatics (BHI) that their next question
is fairly predictable: "What is Biomedical and Health?...
Informatics?" This is what I usually say: Informatics is interested
in information problems. That means, very generally, we’re concerned
with what information people need, where they get it, how they keep
it and share it, and how they use it. We’re interested in
understanding these information problems, and we’re also usually
interested in trying to solve them. Often these solutions involve
innovative technologies. The Biomedical and Health part means we’re
doing informatics in those domains. Some examples of medical
informatics are computer systems in hospitals or more individual
tools like PDA systems to help people lose weight through tracking
and encouraging exercise. Within this domain, I am particularly interested in making these systems useful for the people who use them. It bothers me to hear people say things like "oh, I’m bad at computers" or "I hate this stupid machine, it doesn’t ever do what I want." They feel like they’re "bad users," but really we need to design better systems that fit their needs. To do this I spend my time looking at the larger context of what people are trying to do and how an information system could help them achieve that goal. Then I’m also interested in designing these systems with good interfaces. My perfect world would include unobtrusive computer applications that help people meet their goals. The medical and health world holds lots of exciting opportunities for this kind of work and I’m particularly interested in what we call "consumer health," which really means everyone and their individual health. Of course the second question people ask is also fairly predictable, and that’s, "When will you finish?" Well, we’ll see. | |
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