skip to Main Content
design lab ucsd lara mangravite

Future of Public Health Research: Joint-Collaboration Event Sparks Agile Healthcare Discussion

Future of Public Health Research: Joint-Collaboration Event Sparks Agile Healthcare Discussion

Future of Public Health Research: Joint-Collaboration Event Sparks Agile Healthcare Discussion

This past May, the Design Lab hosted The Future of Public Health Research event in collaboration with the Institute of Public Health at UC San Diego, the Qualcomm Institute, the Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems, and local industry partners. The event united scholars and practitioners from diverse disciplines such as business, design, engineering, medicine and public policy. The event was driven by a collective interest in exploring why public health research may need to change, how that change can be designed in an impactful, human-centric way, and the roles that various groups play in contributing to a new vision of public health. Throughout the day, academic and industry speakers working within the sphere of public health alongside health advocates, shared their insights on panels and facilitated a wider discussion to engage attendees concerning the critical issues that need to be addressed.


(Pictured Left to Right: Kevin Patrick, Professor, Family Medicine and Public Health; Don Norman, Director of the Design Lab)

The discussion-style nature of the event encouraged attendees to delve deeply into the emerging public health conversation. Among the key areas of focus included identifying participatory stakeholders and leaders within the space, the roles of various disciplines in effecting change and the support that must be in place to enable the successful transformation of current systems. Speakers highlighted several themes that transcend both presentations and panel discussions which included the idea of global design, forging strong connections with clinical systems to inspire a continuum of prevention and intervention in addition to a call to acknowledge the need to examine gaps in existing solutions. “My sense was that, as said by Dr. Aronoff-Spencer of the Design Lab, there is a deep hunger for bringing the public truly and meaningfully into public health,” said Eric Hekler, Director of the Center for Population and Wireless Health Systems.


(Pictured: Lara Mangravite, President, Sage Bionetworks)

Michèle Morris, Associate Director of The Design Lab, hopes that attendees gained a greater understanding of and empathy for the public health ecosystem at the event, while successfully expanding their personal and professional networks to pave the way for collaborative discovery. The event provided a launchpad for continued dialogue surrounding cross-disciplinary efforts and initiatives. Dr. Doug Ziedonis, Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences, echoed similar sentiments stating his excitement and enthusiasm for the growing momentum of public health at UC San Diego to fuel innovation. “Design thinking is about being part of the doing and not simply the theory. It is vital to look at the needs of the population through the eyes of the population.” Ziedonis is looking forward to taking part in weaving design thinking into public health research through exploring applications of data science and human-computer interaction. Finally, Dr. Michael Pratt, Director of the Institute for Public Health at UC San Diego stated, “What a wonderful event to stimulate creative thinking and discussion about a multi-sectoral future for public health. More importantly this is a jumping off point for a new School of Public Health here at UC San Diego where we can truly put these concepts into action and positivity impact population health in San Diego and the world!”


(Pictured Left to Right: Michael Pratt, Director of the Institute for Public Health; Larry Smarr, Founding Director of CalIT2; Doug Ziedonis, Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences; Cheryl Anderson, Associate Director and Interim Department Chair, Family Medicine and Public Health)

The next installment of this event will revolve around strengthening the exchange of ideas through translating new interactions between attendees into platforms for growth into  actionable work. Presenting attendees with the environment to unearth challenges and navigate evolving topics across varying expertise will create opportunities to develop an agile framework for public health solutions.

This past May, the Design Lab hosted The Future of Public Health Research event in collaboration with the Institute of Public Health at UC San Diego, the Qualcomm Institute, the Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems, and local industry partners. The event united scholars and practitioners from diverse disciplines such as business, design, engineering, medicine and public policy. The event was driven by a collective interest in exploring why public health research may need to change, how that change can be designed in an impactful, human-centric way, and the roles that various groups play in contributing to a new vision of public health. Throughout the day, academic and industry speakers working within the sphere of public health alongside health advocates, shared their insights on panels and facilitated a wider discussion to engage attendees concerning the critical issues that need to be addressed.


(Pictured Left to Right: Kevin Patrick, Professor, Family Medicine and Public Health; Don Norman, Director of the Design Lab)

The discussion-style nature of the event encouraged attendees to delve deeply into the emerging public health conversation. Among the key areas of focus included identifying participatory stakeholders and leaders within the space, the roles of various disciplines in effecting change and the support that must be in place to enable the successful transformation of current systems. Speakers highlighted several themes that transcend both presentations and panel discussions which included the idea of global design, forging strong connections with clinical systems to inspire a continuum of prevention and intervention in addition to a call to acknowledge the need to examine gaps in existing solutions. “My sense was that, as said by Dr. Aronoff-Spencer of the Design Lab, there is a deep hunger for bringing the public truly and meaningfully into public health,” said Eric Hekler, Director of the Center for Population and Wireless Health Systems.


(Pictured: Lara Mangravite, President, Sage Bionetworks)

Michèle Morris, Associate Director of The Design Lab, hopes that attendees gained a greater understanding of and empathy for the public health ecosystem at the event, while successfully expanding their personal and professional networks to pave the way for collaborative discovery. The event provided a launchpad for continued dialogue surrounding cross-disciplinary efforts and initiatives. Dr. Doug Ziedonis, Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences, echoed similar sentiments stating his excitement and enthusiasm for the growing momentum of public health at UC San Diego to fuel innovation. “Design thinking is about being part of the doing and not simply the theory. It is vital to look at the needs of the population through the eyes of the population.” Ziedonis is looking forward to taking part in weaving design thinking into public health research through exploring applications of data science and human-computer interaction. Finally, Dr. Michael Pratt, Director of the Institute for Public Health at UC San Diego stated, “What a wonderful event to stimulate creative thinking and discussion about a multi-sectoral future for public health. More importantly this is a jumping off point for a new School of Public Health here at UC San Diego where we can truly put these concepts into action and positivity impact population health in San Diego and the world!”


(Pictured Left to Right: Michael Pratt, Director of the Institute for Public Health; Larry Smarr, Founding Director of CalIT2; Doug Ziedonis, Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences; Cheryl Anderson, Associate Director and Interim Department Chair, Family Medicine and Public Health)

The next installment of this event will revolve around strengthening the exchange of ideas through translating new interactions between attendees into platforms for growth into  actionable work. Presenting attendees with the environment to unearth challenges and navigate evolving topics across varying expertise will create opportunities to develop an agile framework for public health solutions.

This past May, the Design Lab hosted The Future of Public Health Research event in collaboration with the Institute of Public Health at UC San Diego, the Qualcomm Institute, the Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems, and local industry partners. The event united scholars and practitioners from diverse disciplines such as business, design, engineering, medicine and public policy. The event was driven by a collective interest in exploring why public health research may need to change, how that change can be designed in an impactful, human-centric way, and the roles that various groups play in contributing to a new vision of public health. Throughout the day, academic and industry speakers working within the sphere of public health alongside health advocates, shared their insights on panels and facilitated a wider discussion to engage attendees concerning the critical issues that need to be addressed.


(Pictured Left to Right: Kevin Patrick, Professor, Family Medicine and Public Health; Don Norman, Director of the Design Lab)

The discussion-style nature of the event encouraged attendees to delve deeply into the emerging public health conversation. Among the key areas of focus included identifying participatory stakeholders and leaders within the space, the roles of various disciplines in effecting change and the support that must be in place to enable the successful transformation of current systems. Speakers highlighted several themes that transcend both presentations and panel discussions which included the idea of global design, forging strong connections with clinical systems to inspire a continuum of prevention and intervention in addition to a call to acknowledge the need to examine gaps in existing solutions. “My sense was that, as said by Dr. Aronoff-Spencer of the Design Lab, there is a deep hunger for bringing the public truly and meaningfully into public health,” said Eric Hekler, Director of the Center for Population and Wireless Health Systems.


(Pictured: Lara Mangravite, President, Sage Bionetworks)

Michèle Morris, Associate Director of The Design Lab, hopes that attendees gained a greater understanding of and empathy for the public health ecosystem at the event, while successfully expanding their personal and professional networks to pave the way for collaborative discovery. The event provided a launchpad for continued dialogue surrounding cross-disciplinary efforts and initiatives. Dr. Doug Ziedonis, Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences, echoed similar sentiments stating his excitement and enthusiasm for the growing momentum of public health at UC San Diego to fuel innovation. “Design thinking is about being part of the doing and not simply the theory. It is vital to look at the needs of the population through the eyes of the population.” Ziedonis is looking forward to taking part in weaving design thinking into public health research through exploring applications of data science and human-computer interaction. Finally, Dr. Michael Pratt, Director of the Institute for Public Health at UC San Diego stated, “What a wonderful event to stimulate creative thinking and discussion about a multi-sectoral future for public health. More importantly this is a jumping off point for a new School of Public Health here at UC San Diego where we can truly put these concepts into action and positivity impact population health in San Diego and the world!”


(Pictured Left to Right: Michael Pratt, Director of the Institute for Public Health; Larry Smarr, Founding Director of CalIT2; Doug Ziedonis, Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences; Cheryl Anderson, Associate Director and Interim Department Chair, Family Medicine and Public Health)

The next installment of this event will revolve around strengthening the exchange of ideas through translating new interactions between attendees into platforms for growth into  actionable work. Presenting attendees with the environment to unearth challenges and navigate evolving topics across varying expertise will create opportunities to develop an agile framework for public health solutions.

Read Next

Ailie Fraser UCSD Design Lab

Ailie Fraser Aims to Support People Doing Creative Tasks with Software

“There’s so much helpful content available now, but how can it be understood and consumed by a novice?” asks Ailie Fraser, a PhD graduate, “That’s what I’m interested in answering.” She is a part of a generation of upcoming design innovators, working collaboratively with The Design Lab. Her recently published dissertation aims to support people doing creative tasks with software specifically by leveraging resources generated by experts and bringing them into the context of people's workflows; in order to make them simpler to navigate and understand.

Fraser received her PhD from UCSD in Computer Science this past spring, and is now working full-time as a Research Engineer at Adobe Research. During her PhD, she completed three internships with Adobe Research. During her first internship, she focused on the domain of photo editing in Photoshop and addressed the problems novices experience when they begin to use the application. Due to the plethora of features and tools offered by the service, it can often be overwhelming to those unfamiliar with Photoshop.

Nazima Ahmad is Putting People Over Profits by Connecting Art and Design at the Design Lab

If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that our communities are more important than ever. The pandemic has changed the ways in which we experience and perceive community—sometimes even causing us to feel that it has vanished. The past two years have been an uncertain time for those involved in the arts, with many creative professionals being impacted by dwindling audiences and interest. Nazima Ahmad, a Designer-in-Residence at The Design Lab, noticed the crumbling connection between artists and consumers and sought to find a way to mend it. Working with fellow designer Michelle Hoogenhout, the two were able to come up with City Canvas, a concept developed in collaboration with the Arts and Commission Department of the City of San Diego that won the 2020 SCALE San Diego Urban Innovation Challenge that works to make connecting with local artists easier for San Diego residents.

“Working with the city on that project was all-around trying to figure out how to promote the creative economy of San Diego,” says Ahmad of the goal of the project. Not only was the project a great success at Design Week, but it is also what led Ahmad to The Design Lab.
Uc San Diego Design Lab

Design Lab and MIT Media Lab Join Forces to Organize a Design·a·Hack·a·thon

No hackathon would be complete without cardboard prototypes strewn about the room, laptop screens glowing with code, and the edgy excitement of teams working against the clock. Hackathons concentrate the efforts of talented, highly motivated participants eager to develop new technologies. There is, however, often one key element missing from this picture: the people for whom these technologies might serve. This inspired The Design Lab to ask, “How might we make designing for people the central element of a hackathon?” Answer: we needed to make “design” a central component. Designathons and Design Swarms exist, but they didn’t quite fit our need to combine both designing and doing (hacking) in a very short, highly condensed manner. Eventually we ended up with Design·a·Hack·a·thon.
Ucsd Design Lab Biometric

Researchers Develop Biometric Tool for Newborn Fingerprinting

Researchers at the University of California San Diego say they have dramatically advanced the science…

Building New Bridges: San Diego And Tijuana’s Combined Bid Breaks Down Barriers To Bi-National Cooperation

Building New Bridges: San Diego and Tijuana’s Combined Bid Breaks Down Barriers to Bi-National Cooperation

As dusk hovered over The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park on October 3 at the ‘Welcome Home, Bienvenido a Casa’ event, reflections off the San Diego Bay illuminated an evening of excited anticipation more than five years in the making. Will the San Diego-Tijuana megaregion take home the win in their bid to be the 2024 World Design Capital? Or will it be their competitors, Moscow?

Hosting the event and spearheading the San Diego-Tijuana bid initiative is the interorganizational collaboration of Design Forward Alliance, UC San Diego Design Lab and the Burnham Center for Community Advancement, with the full support of the City of San Diego and City of Tijuana and regional elected officials. This collective was created to amplify San Diego’s capacity as a global leader in human-centered design-driven innovation. The combined communities of art, culture, business, education, civic and design worked together in a multi-year, multi-national collaboration culminating in this night of solidarity for the joint-effort to win the coveted World Design Capital designation—a year-long city promotion program that would begin in 2024 and put the region on the global stage as a world-class innovator of economic, social, cultural and environmental design solutions for a better society.

“It’s not just about gaining the World Design Capital title,” said the Director of The Design Lab, Mai Thi Nguyen. “It’s about how we actually want to contribute and collaborate on multidisciplinary design innovation throughout the region, nationally and globally.”
Don Norman Emphatic Design

Why I Don’t Believe in Empathic Design

Human-centered design pioneer Don Norman, who coined the term ‘user experience,’ explains why he’s not convinced by the current obsession with empathy and what we should do instead.

I approve of the spirit behind the introduction of empathy into design, but I believe the concept is impossible, and even if possible, wrong. The reason we often talk about empathy in design is that we really need to understand the people that we’re working for. The idea is that, essentially, you’re in a person’s head and understand how they feel and what they think.
Back To Top