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Professor Rupa Valdez 
University of Virginia
Designing Systems That Promote Equity: A Journey Across Disciplines
Abstract
Fueled by global crises including the pandemic and the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others, a heightened interest has emerged in determining how to create sociotechnical systems that deconstruct rather than perpetuate inequity and injustice. In this talk, I share and critically reflect on my journey in service of this goal over the last decade. I begin with a discussion of my early career efforts that merged approaches from cultural anthropology and engineering to inform the design of patient-facing health information technologies. I then transition to more recent community-based participatory research and policy-based efforts aimed at reimagining public health education, accessible healthcare, and the role of community in shaping the research process. My engagement with historically marginalized communities has pushed my efforts from a primary focus on creating technologies aligned with the contexts in which such communities are embedded to a broader focus on working with communities to shift these contexts. In concluding remarks, I reflect on how encouraging such work requires, at minimum, embracing a broader conceptualization of engineering and, perhaps more ambitiously, work that may be considered a-disciplinary.
Biography
Dr. Rupa Valdez is an associate professor at the University of Virginia with joint appointments in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the School of Medicine. She is also a core faculty member of Global Studies and the Disability Studies Initiative. Dr. Valdez merges the disciplines of human factors engineering, health informatics, and cultural anthropology to understand and support the ways in which people manage health at home and in the community. Her research and teaching focus on underserved populations, including populations that are racial/ethnic minorities, are of low socioeconomic status or are living with physical, sensory, or cognitive disabilities. Her work draws heavily on community engagement and has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), among others. She has testified before Congress on the topic of health equity for the disability community and received the Jack A. Kraft Innovator Award from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) for her pioneering work in creating and developing the subdiscipline of patient ergonomics.
Among other appointments, she serves on the Board of Directors for the American Association of People with Disabilities, on PCORI’s Patient Engagement Advisory Panel, and as a member of the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s (NCQA) Health Equity Expert Work Group. Dr. Valdez also currently serves as an Associate Editor for Ergonomics, the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) Open, and Human Factors in Healthcare. She has previously served on the AHRQ Director’s Roundtable on Patient Safety, as Chair of HFES Internal Affairs Division, and in multiple advisory roles for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. She is the founder and president of Blue Trunk Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to making it easier for people with chronic health conditions, disabilities, and age-related conditions to travel. Dr. Valdez herself lives with multiple chronic health conditions and disabilities, which have and continue to influence her research, teaching, and advocacy. She has been quoted in publications ranging from Politico to Teen Vogue.
MIE’s Distinguished Seminar Series features top international researchers and leading experts across major areas of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Engineering. The speakers present about their latest research and offer their perspectives on the current state of their field. The seminars are part of the program requirements for MIE Master of Applied Science and PhD students. The Distinguished Seminar Series is coordinated for 2023-2024 by Associate Professor Eric Diller.
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