Faculty

Wanda Pratt

Dr. Pratt is an Assistant Professor in both the Information School and the Division of Biomedical & Health Informatics in the School of Medicine at the University of Washington. In 1999, she received her Ph.D. in Medical Informatics from Stanford University. She received her M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Texas, and her B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Kansas. Her experience in knowledge-based systems dates back to the late eighties when she developed a medical expert system for NASA, and in the early to mid nineties when she worked on CYC project to represent all of common-sense knowledge. Her recent research focuses on knowledge-based methods to retrieve, organize, mine, and present textual medical information. She is also a recent recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, which funds her text-mining research. Wanda's Website

Biomedical and Health Informatics, PhD Student

Andrea Civan

I am a graduate student in the Biomedical and Health Informatics program. My interests include consumer health informatics, information and knowledge representation and retrieval, and personal information management. My current research explores the ways in which people faced with cancer manage their personal and health information during cancer treatment. The aim of this work is to develop informatics tools that help patients learn how to organize and use their personal and health information in ways that might improve the quality of their cancer experience. Andrea's Website

Meredith Skeels

I am interested in looking at ways we can use technology as a tool to help people get and use the information they need. Within this broad goal I am interested in studying human-computer interaction and information visualization, with a focus on assessing and fulfilling information needs. Currently, I am working on the interface of LitLinker and am beginning to read Personal Information Management (PIM) literature. My other interests include horticulture, baking, and swimming. The best way to contact me is by email.

Information School, PhD in Information Science Students

Kent Unruh

Kent Unruh is a doctoral candidate in the Information School and a National Libraries of Medicine Research Fellow with the Division of Biomedical and Health Informatics in the School of Medicine at the University of Washington. He holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in Computer Science from Goshen College (IN) and a Masters of Information Technology from Northwestern University (IL). Prior pursuing a doctorate, he spent ten years developing information infrastructure for organizations providing social services and healthcare in dense urban neighborhoods. His research focuses on understanding information interactions in individual and community health. He uses qualitative and quantitative designs to study information processes in the clinical environment. His dissertation work focuses on the needs of cancer patients as they transition between treatment modalities.

Meliha Yetisgen Yildiz

I am a Ph.D. student in the Information School at the University of Washington. I received my B.S. degree in Computer Engineering and Information Science from Bilkent University and M.S. degree in Computer Engineering from Middle East Technical University. My main research interest is Text Mining in Medical Literature. Text mining is a way to examine a collection of documents and discover information not contained in any individual document in the collection. My focus in this area is seeking relationships between the content of multiple medical texts and linking this information together to form a testable hypothesis about new information. My other research interests include natural language processing and machine learning, more specifically automatic classification of medical documents. I am currently working as part of the LitLinker project team. Meliha's Website

Alumni

Brian Stoll

Brian is a graduate of the Master of Science in Information Management program. He enjoys the combination of people and technology, specifically with regards to the development and design of both software and data, project management, and content management. He is currently the Teaching Assistant and Lab Administrator for the Content Management Systems Lab (http://cmslab.ischool.washington.edu). His personal interests include playing basketball, fantasy basketball (which he is much better at), laying on the couch, and playing scrabble with his wife.