Lauren G. Wilcox (Lauren G. Wilcox-Patterson) is an American

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

and researcher in

human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction (HCI) is research in the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and computers. HCI researchers observe the ways humans interact with computers and design tec ...

and

health informatics Health informatics is the field of science and engineering that aims at developing methods and technologies for the acquisition, processing, and study of patient data, which can come from different sources and modalities, such as electronic hea ...

, known for creating computing systems that enable

patient participation Patient participation is a trend that arose in answer to medical paternalism. Informed consent is a process where patients make decisions informed by the advice of medical professionals. In recent years, the term "patient participation" has been ...

in health care as well as patient and family member participation in the technology design process.

Education

Wilcox earned her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 2013, collaborating closely with graduate students and faculty in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and the

Columbia University Irving Medical Center NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center (NYP/CUIMC), also known as the Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), is an academic medical center and the largest campus of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. It includes Co ...

. She holds a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

and an

M.S. A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

, both from

, which she earned before returning for her Ph.D.

Career

Prior to her research career, Wilcox was a Staff Software Engineer at IBM in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

and was recognized as an Early Tenure Inventor. After completing her Ph.D., Wilcox joined the

Georgia Institute of Technology School of Interactive Computing The School of Interactive Computing is an academic unit located within the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). It conducts both research and teaching activities related to interactive computing at the under ...

and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in April 2020. She directs the Health Experience and Applications Lab at

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

. At Georgia Tech, Wilcox has expanded her research scope to focus on how computing technology can meet the health needs of adolescents, including adolescent chronic condition management and adolescent health data privacy. She has also contributed foundational studies on how computing systems can support mental well-being, and the consideration of human well-being as an integral part of technology design. Wilcox was an inaugural member of the ACM Future of Computing Academy (ACM FCA) and co-authored an ACM FCA blog post in 2018, urging the computing research community to leverage the peer review process to identify and address the broader impacts of computing advancements on society. Since the publication of the blog post, there have been examples of computing conferences requiring authors to submit statements on the broader impacts of their contributions. Wilcox joined Google in 2019, where she contributed to one of the first published studies examining the use of a

deep learning Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. Learning can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised. De ...

-based AI system in patient care. In 2020, she held a research leadership position in the Wellbeing Lab at Google.

Personal

Wilcox was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, but spent most of her childhood years in the

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

metropolitan area. Before moving back to

for college, she played bass guitar in

The Von Bondies The Von Bondies are an American alternative rock band formed in 1997. The original line-up formed at the 1997 Cramps/Guitar Wolf show by Jason Stollsteimer and Marcie Bolen. They went through a variety of member changes and band names, including ...

. She is married to Richard Patterson.

External links

*
Stanford University Human-Computer Interaction Seminar

Microsoft Research - Principles of Intelligence: Learning, health and wellness

Health Experience and Applications Lab at Georgia Tech

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilcox, Lauren Living people Georgia Tech faculty Human–computer interaction researchers Health informaticians American women social scientists American women computer scientists American computer scientists 21st-century American women scientists Google employees Year of birth missing (living people) American women academics Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni