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Benjamin Smarr (UC San Diego)
December 9, 2020 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
*All Fall 2020 Design@Large talks will be hosted online. This aligns with UC San Diego policy that all events be hosted virtual during the Fall 2020 quarter.
Data Stories, the Information Reformation, and COVID-19
Personal, physiological data are becoming common. How do we pick information from this deluge of data? A deeper appreciation of the way biology makes use of time combine with the timeless human urge to share with stories, not just numbers. Together, these two lenses let us surf the deluge to make rapid progress in previously impossible-to-reach biomedical applications. In this talk, we will see how classical circadian biology has sewn the seeds for a major upheaval in biomedical research, in which COVID-19 seems likely to become a historic pivot.
About the Speaker
Prof. Smarr got his PhD in Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of Washington before serving as an NIH postdoctoral fellow at Berkeley. Dr. Smarr’s work focuses on biological rhythms and neuroendocrinology, which he approaches through collaboration with wearable device companies and communities wishing to collaborate to explore the data they generate about themselves. Dr. Smarr joined UCSD’s Dept. of Bioengineering early in 2020, has a joint appointment to the Halicioglu Data Science Institute, and is the UCSD PI and technical lead on the largest public wearable-driven COVID-19 study: TemPredict.
About Design@Large
Design@Large is a speaker series that is hosted by The Design Lab at UCSD, where each quarter we examine a topic in society and the relevance and implications through the lens of human centered design. This fall, hosted by Professor Edward Wang from Electrical & Computer Engineering, we will discuss the topic that has affected all of our lives, COVID-19. In a way, we are all talking about the fundamental thought of “how do we stay safe in the times of COVID-19?” But what does that mean? What are the facets of consideration that goes into this idea of “staying safe?”
We have an exciting list of speakers covering topics around remote and predictive healthcare, break throughs in computational materials towards future proofing our built environments, enabling large gatherings through virtual events, and economic impact on underrepresented communities.