Holly Witteman

I am Holly Witteman; this is my personal and professional blog. This is where I (very occasionally) put thoughts and comments that don’t have anywhere else to go, and that might garner a handful of comments upon which I can reflect. I am not a frequent blogger — my writing energies are strategically focused elsewhere — and this blog falls very low on my list of priorities.

I have a background in Mathematics and Engineering. I did my Ph.D. Human Factors Engineering at the University of Toronto, where I was also doctoral fellow in the Health Care, Technology and Place program, taught courses in Linear Algebra and TA’d seminars in Engineering and Society. I recently completed a post-doc in the Program in Health Communication and Decision Making at the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine at the University of Michigan. I am now on leave after having my second child and will be taking up a faculty position (which is not yet sufficiently signed and official that I am prepared to post details) in 2012.

My research interests have to do mainly with online health applications and issues surrounding them, such as interactive risk communication, online communities, literacy and numeracy, risk perception,  individual differences that influence information needs and preferences, and how people use online health information in the course of making decisions large and small. My Ph.D. research looked at how people use online health information and laid some groundwork for ongoing research about information filtering methods and how people explore their own values and preferences to make health-related decisions. In my postdoc, I am continuing those research interests and have lines of research on values clarification, preference elicitation, online health communication, and interactive risk communication.

I am a mother of two children, who I parent with my husband William. We are a multilingual family: I speak only French with my kids and my oldest attends a francophone school. I love field sports and outdoor activities like backcountry hiking and canoeing. I have been type 1 diabetic for nearly three decades now; I use an insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitoring system. I am an avid reader and, like most of family, am absurdly competitive when it comes to board games.