Ravi Karkar

Contact:
Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences rkarkar@cs.umass.edu


I am an Assistant Professor in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

My research focuses on designing, developing, and evaluating tools that can enable people to gather data and interpret personal aspects of their medical condition in the context of their day-to-day lives. Specifically, I have explored tools that:

  • support collaborative care management of patients with cancer and depression by integrating care managers, oncologists, psychiatrists, and administrators to treat depression in primary care settings
  • enable self-experimentation (n-of-1 trials) among people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) to identify their individualized food-based triggers
  • introduce a new form of self-monitoring in people with end-stage liver disease enabling them to better understand their chronic condition

My long-term goal is to empower people to gain an informed perspective of their individual health and well-being.

I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Washington. I am a recipient of the Three-Sixty Fellowship for computer science and engineering and numerous travel grants to present my research at premier conferences. My research has been recognized by CHI and DIS, and I have organized cross-disciplinary panels and discussions around tools for self-tracking at ICTD and QSC.

TummyTrials

Enabling Self-Experimentation in Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Three stages of the framework for self-experimentation in personalized health

TummyTrials App screens highlighting self-experiment configuration, daily reminders & prompts, and result of a self-experiment

A Patient-Centered Proposal for Bayesian Analysis of Self-Experiments for Health
Jessica Schroeder, Ravi Karkar, James Fogarty, Sean A. Munson, and Matthew Kay.
JHIR 2018 • PDF • Source

TummyTrials: A Feasibility Study of Using Self-Experimentation to Detect Individualized Food Triggers
Ravi Karkar, Jessica Schroder, Daniel A. Epstein, Laura R. Pina, Jeffrey Scofield, James Fogarty, Julie A. Kientz, Sean A. Munson, Roger Vilardaga, and Jasmine Zia.
CHI 2017 • Honorable Mention Award (Top 5%) • PDF • Source • Code

A Framework for Self-Experimentation in Personalized Health
Ravi Karkar, Jasmine Zia, Roger Vilardaga, Sonali R. Mishra, James Fogarty, Sean A. Munson, and Julie A. Kientz.
JAMIA 2016 • Source

Opportunities and Challenges for Self-Experimentation in Self-Tracking.
Ravi Karkar, James Fogarty, Julie A. Kientz, Sean A. Munson, Roger Vilardaga, and Jasmine Zia.
UbiComp 2015 Workshop on New Frontiers of Quantifed Self • PDF • Source



Beacon

Introducing Self-Monitoring in End-Stage Liver Disease

Lafayette Flicker Fusion System used for measuring CFF (not pictured - computer used to run protocol)
Beacon prototype used to measure CFF


Beacon: Designing a Portable Device for Self-Administering a Measure of Critical Flicker Frequency
Ravi Karkar, Rafal Kocielnik, Xiaoyi Zhang, Jasmine Zia, George N. Ioannou, Sean A. Munson, and James Fogarty.
IMWUT 2018 • PDF • Source

Toward a Portable, Self-Administered Critical Flicker Frequency Test
Ravi Karkar, Rafal Kocielnik, Xiaoyi Zhang, James Fogarty, George N. Ioannou, Sean A. Munson, and Jasmine Zia.
UbiComp 2016 Workshop on Mental Health: Sensing & Intervention • PDF • Source

Select Publications

See my Google Scholar for a complete publication list.

The Importance of Starting with Goals in N-of-1 Studies
Sean A. Munson, Jessica Schroeder, Ravi Karkar, Julie A. Kientz, Chia-Fang Chung, and James Fogarty.
Frontiers 2020 • PDF • Source

Examining Opportunities for Goal-Directed Self-Tracking to Support Chronic Condition Management
Jessica Schroeder, Ravi Karkar, Natalia Murinova, James Fogarty, and Sean A. Munson.
IMWUT 2019 • PDF • Source

Beacon: Designing a Portable Device for Self-Administering a Measure of Critical Flicker Frequency
Ravi Karkar, Rafal Kocielnik, Xiaoyi Zhang, Jasmine Zia, George N. Ioannou, Sean A. Munson, and James Fogarty.
IMWUT 2018 • PDF • Source

Examining Self-Tracking by People with Migraine: Goals, Needs, and Opportunities in a Chronic Health Condition
Jessica Schroeder, Chia-Fang Chung, Daniel A. Epstein, Ravi Karkar, Adele Parsons, Natalia Murinova, James Fogarty, and Sean A. Munson.
DIS 2018 • Honorable Mention Award (Top 5%) • PDF • Source

TummyTrials: A Feasibility Study of Using Self-Experimentation to Detect Individualized Food Triggers
Ravi Karkar, Jessica Schroder, Daniel A. Epstein, Laura R. Pina, Jeffrey Scofield, James Fogarty, Julie A. Kientz, Sean A. Munson, Roger Vilardaga, and Jasmine Zia.
CHI 2017 • Honorable Mention Award (Top 5%) • PDF • Source • Code

A Framework for Self-Experimentation in Personalized Health
Ravi Karkar, Jasmine Zia, Roger Vilardaga, Sonali R. Mishra, James Fogarty, Sean A. Munson, and Julie A. Kientz.
JAMIA 2016 • Source



Organizer

  • Open Session Panel - ICTD and Personal Informatics at ICTD 2019
  • Discussion - Designing Platforms for N-of-1 Experiments at QSC 2018

Program Committee

  • Graphics Interface Conference - 2020
  • Pervasive Health Conference - 2020
  • CHI workhop - A Short Workshop on Next Step Towards Long Term Self Tracking - CHI 2018

University Service

  • DUB Student Coordinator - 2017-2019
  • DUB Doctoral Consortium Co-organzier - 2018, 2019
  • CSE PhD Admission Committe (as reviewer)- 2017, 2019
  • CSE 590h Seminar Student Coordinator - 2016-2018
  • CSE PhD Mentorship Program (as mentor) - 2015-2017
  • DUB Retreat Student Coordinator - 2017
  • CSE Visit Days HCI Area Scheduler-in Chief and Housing Coordinator - 2017
  • CSE Visit Days Housing Coordinator and Activity Coordinator - 2016, 2017

Reviewer

  • GI, Graphics Interface Conference - 2020
  • Pervasive Health, EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare - 2017, 2020
  • CHI, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - 2017-2020
  • IMWUT, Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (previously UbiComp) - 2016-2018
  • AMIA, American Medical Informatics Association - 2018
  • IDC, ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference - 2018
  • DIS, ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems - 2018
  • TEI, ACM International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction - 2018
  • ISWC, International Symposium on Wearable Computers - 2017

Volunteer

  • Student Volunteer UbiComp - 2015, 2017
  • Student Volunteer CHI - 2012, 2016

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