My current research is focused on the use of technology to support medical education and healthcare delivery in conjunction with the University of Washington Institute for Surgical & Interventional Simulation.

I am working with Dr. Brian Ross, Dr. Tom Benedetti, and Dr. Jacob Rosen to develop new documentation technology and procedures to improve the standard of care during hospital emergency code events. This includes the development of a simulation-based training curriculum as well as experimental devices to improve team communication and record-keeping.

I am assisting Dr. Sara Kim and Dr. Andrew Wright in the creation of a standardized evaluation for a new central-line placement curriculum. This will incorporate a web-based electronic learning module in conjunction with simulator training to teach both the cognitive and psychomotor skills necessary to conduct this procedure.

I am working with Dr. Brian Ross and Dr. Freddy Chen to adapt game-based technologies to support medical training. The goal is to leverage the graphics processing and internet connectivity of off-the-shelf hardware such as the Microsoft Xbox 360 to support distance learning and telemedicine.

My prior research focused on knowledge sharing and information alignment working with Dr. John Gennari.

I worked with Dr. John Gennari, Dr. Jesse Wiley, and Dr. Dan Cook on various aspects of modeling cell signaling pathways. This included construction of a frame-based ontology (using Protégé) to represent proteins and their biochemical interactions. This also encompassed visualization work to determine how to graphically represent the pathway knowledge using the Cytoscape visualization tool.

Prior ontology alignment research with Dr. Gennari included a comparison of the Foundational Model of Anatomy, the Gene Ontology cell component, and the Cell Component Ontology. In particular, we were interested in studying the differences between the construction of the three ontologies. These research findings were presented at the 2006 AMIA Annual Symposium.

I have completed the PhD program core academic requirements and the PhD qualifying exam (academic subject knowledge). I am currently working with Dr. Fred Wolf to establish a dissertation committee.