Holly Witteman

I am Holly Witteman; this is my personal and professional blog. This is where I (very, 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. in Human Factors Engineering at the University of Toronto, where I was also doctoral fellow in the highly interdisciplinary Health Care, Technology and Place program, taught courses in Linear Algebra and TA’d seminars in Engineering and Society. I did my 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 an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Université Laval in Quebec City, Québec.

My research is broadly about how people use information delivered via technology to make health decisions. By people, I mean health professionals, students in the health professions, and the many different people who might see them for care. I focus on risk communication and values clarification, looking at the design and use of things like interactive interfaces and social media. My guiding philosophy is what I call reality-based design, meaning that I design and evaluate for the way people are, rather than for the way we wish they were.

I am a mother of two children, who I parent with my husband William. I love field sports and outdoor activities like backcountry hiking and canoeing. I have been type 1 diabetic for three decades now; I use an insulin pump (Ping) and a continuous glucose monitoring system (Dex 7+), and would really like Health Canada to approve the Animas Vibe, already. I am an avid reader and, like most of my family, am absurdly competitive when it comes to strategy board games. I have an appallingly bad sense of direction and while I do pretty well outside, I routinely get lost in buildings.