President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program Prospective Candidate

Designing for control and alignment in personal data tools

Yasaman SefidgarPh.D. CandidateUniversity of Washington
WHERE:
Remote/Virtual
WHEN:
Tuesday, November 26, 2024 @ 10:30 am - 11:15 am
This event is free and open to the publicAdd to Google Calendar
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Zoom seminar link

Abstract: Despite the abundance of diverse personal data and its potential for improving health, it remains challenging to use it. A key problem is difficulties in controlling the functionality of available systems and aligning them with evolving needs. Current systems commonly restrict what information is recorded and how, lack effective means for sense-making and decision-making, and fall short in supporting the translation of data insights into personalized actions. I pursue human-centered approaches to building systems, interactions, and computational techniques to help people draw value from personal data.

Bio: Yasaman Sefidgar is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington, where she studies systems and interactions that empower people to meaningfully engage with data for health and wellbeing. She has examined the challenges of working with personal data across domains including chronic conditions, workplace stress, and student mental health. Her work has been recognized by Meta PhD Fellowship and awards including CHI 2024 Best Paper Award, IMWUT 2023 Distinguished Paper Award, and HRI 2017 Best Paper Honorable Mention Award. She is also a finalist for the Dissertation Award by American Association for University Women and Schmidt Science Fellowship. Before her PhD research, Yasaman explored end-user programming for robots, structural modeling for interaction detection in computer vision, and design of affective haptics interactions.

Faculty Host

Xu Wang