2025 Research Speaker Series
Dr. Emma McDonnell
National Library of Medicine Postdoctoral Fellow
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2
4:30 – 5:20 p.m.
Sieg Building, room 134
Chronic Health, Disability, and Design: Bridging Health Informatics and Accessibility Research to Support People with Chronic Health Conditions
HCI researchers have long worked to support the billions of people worldwide living with chronic health conditions. However, these supports primarily enforce medical management of chronic health conditions. While medical management is crucial, it often does not encompass support for the many barriers that people with chronic health conditions face throughout daily life. At the same time, many people with chronic health conditions have begun to identify as disabled and seek out disability community and accessibility support. In this talk, I will detail research investigating how both accessibility and health researchers could shift our practice to collaboratively better meet the everyday access needs of people with chronic health conditions.
About the presenter
Dr. Emma McDonnell is a National Library of Medicine postdoctoral fellow in the University of Washington School of Medicine's Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education. She earned her PhD in Human Centered Design and Engineering from the University of Washington. Her research seeks to expand who we consider when designing accessible technologies, including exploring ways to better support people with chronic health conditions and mixed hearing ability groups using captioning to communicate.
The HCDE Research Speaker Series is hosted Thursdays in Autumn Quarter by the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. Presentations are open to the public.