Profile

I am a computer scientist who is interested in how people use data and how technology helps them do this. I am particularly interested in privacy (how someone can control what others know about them) and consent (people should be asked for permission).

I am in the third and last year of my phd. In my first year, I asked some patients taking part in medical research about their experiences (for example, “What is the aim of the project you are part of?”, and “How do you think researchers should protect your information?”). I asked the researchers about how they had designed their project (“What is important to you?”, and “How do you protect people’s information?”). I found that researchers spend a lot of time thinking about privacy and protection, and they also think about how to communicate back to people with updates etc. The problem was that the researchers had spent a lot of time doing this, but their patients didn’t know what was going on.

In my second year, I took all the interviews I had done and made a plan for how to improve the situation. There is a website for the project, so I thought that the researchers could make quick videos about themselves and put updates on the website. I went back to the patients I had interviewed and asked them what they thought. They agreed! The patients I work with are my favourite part of the job, because they are always ready to get involved and they have come up with some incredible ideas that I haven’t thought of at all.

This year I am working with the researchers to make these changes. The question I am hoping to answer is “If you tell people how you have used their information and thank them, are they more likely to feel included and even keep giving you information?”