Research
At Stanford, I will be conducting research at
the Center for
Work, Technology and Organization
under the guidance of
Professor Pamela Hinds. My research focuses on
collaboration technologies and cross-cultural design. Specifically, I am studying how communication and collaboration
technologies are appropriated in distributed teams across national and
organizational boundaries, what obstacles users and organizations face
and ultimately how we can better design these tools to better suit
user needs. I will be
sure to update this page once my research agenda is underway!
Most of my time as an undergraduate at Cornell was spent doing research with Professor Geri Gay
at the Interaction Design Lab.
My recent research (described below) has been focused on mobile health and has led to several
publications and presentations.
My other research interests include various aspects of human-computer interaction, such as organizational technologies, collaboration technologies
and learning technologies. Below are the two main projects I worked on while at Cornell:
Mindless Eating Challenge
Description: Mindless Eating Challenge is a mobile phone-based health game based on Dr. Brian Wansink's Mindless Eating Challenge. In the game, players are tasked with caring for a virtual pet or plant, similar to the popular Tamgotchi. Pet care requires the user to follow a variety of health and eating recommendations and verify their actions with photos taken with their phone's camera. For example, the recommendation "Eat a hot breakfast" would require the player to submit a photo of him/ herself eating a bowl of oatmeal. Photos and compliance are then judged either by judges or peers. Based on compliance to these recommendations, the pet or plant changes its appearance and gains features or accessories--a tree might grow taller or grow more leaves or fruit in response. Alternatively, leaves might fall off if the players performance is poor. A social portion of the game allows the user to see various depictions of their performance in comparison to the performance of others in their group, as well as of their group in comparison to other groups. Mindless Eating Challenge is funded by the Pioneer Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
VERA
Description: A key to behavior change is the ability to intervene at the point of decision. In health behavior, this could be the moment one must decide between taking the elevator or the stairs or whether or not to eat a piece of cake. These are also the moments where it is most difficult to reach people--they occur throughout the day, often randomly, in any location. Fortunately, the ubiquity and awareness of today's mobile phones provides us with a solution. The goal of this project is to explore the use of the mobile phone as a behavioral interrupt: how, at the point of health-related decisions, can we encourage people to take a moment to think about the ramifications of their decision, reflect on past decisions, and ultimately make healthier choices? The application, codenamed Vera, is currently in testing, but we will reveal more information soon!
