Jaspal S. Sandhu

Curriculum Vitae

My curriculum vitae is here

About

I'm a PhD candidate in Design Theory at the University of California at Berkeley, working with Professor Alice Agogino as a member of her research group. I received my Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

My primary interest is applying human-centered product design methods to rural and international health - and evaluating these methods in practice. My dissertation is a single case study of methods (short-term participant observation) in a specific health context (understanding how bagiin emch, rural Mongolian health workers, manage health information) with a practical application to design (recommendations to the Ministry of Health on improving continuing education, health promotion, and disease surveillance).

See my curriculum vitae or blog for more information.

Research Interests

My research interests are at the intersection of design research and international health:
  • How can we successfully employ ethnographic methods from product design, human-computer interaction, marketing, and strategy consulting for the innovation and improvement of services, systems, and technologies in international health?
  • How do cultural perceptions of technology impact design, adoption, and ulitmately health?
  • What is the relation of design to technology evaluation, particularly in the case of randomized controlled trials?

Recent activity

Ambidextrous Magazine Issue 9: Developing is at the printers. Here the proof of my short article: From Volleyball to Hospitals: Understanding Rural Mongolian Health Workers (4.2MB).

At the end of May, I'll attend the Global Health Council 2008 Conference as a New Investigator in Global Health.

In early April, I participated in the HCI for Community and International Development workshop at CHI 2008 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing) in Florence. Participation was based on the position paper that Alice Agogino and I co-authored titled Design First, Technology Second. More on the workshop and CHI from the blog...

The article Jessica Granderson, Domitila Vasquez, Expedita Ramirez, Kirk Smith and I are co-authoring on data from Guatemala looks like it will be published later this year in Biomass and Bioenergy. Short-term participant observation and Kitchen Performance Test to understand cookstove design and fuel use.

On Thurs-6-Dec-2007 I gave a public research talk at the Amercian Center for Mongolian Studies (National University of Mongolia): Transition, Technology, and Community Health Workers: Bagiin Emch in Mongolia.

Colleague Tsedmaa B. presented the following paper at The XXth Asian and Oceanic Congress of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (Tokyo, 21-25 Sep 2007):
"ICT-Supported Case Management System for Rural Health in Mongolia"
Tsedmaa B.1, Michael O'Rourke2, T. Namkhainyambuu3, P. Altankhuyag3, Jaspal S. Sandhu4
1Maternal and Child Health Research Center, Mongolia, 2Sydney University, Australia, 3JFICT-9053, Asian Development Bank, Ministry of Health, 4University of California, Berkeley, USA


"Serial Hanging Out: Rapid Ethnographic Needs Assessment in Rural Settings" (with P. Altankhuyag and D. Amarsaikhan) was presented at the International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in Beijing (July 2007).

Making Sight Affordable (with M. Ibrahim, A. Bhandari, P. Balakrishnan) has been published in Innovations (MIT Press). The case discussion is provided by V. Kasturi Rangan, of the Harvard Business School. See full issue.

"Peering into the black box: A holistic framework for innovating at the intersection of ICT and health" (book chapter, with M. Ibrahim, B. Bellows, A. Bhandari) has been published in Information Communication Technologies and Human Development: Opportunities and Challenges (ISBN 1-59904-057-3).

News

Engineering change: Of PDAs and maternal medicine in Mongolia, by Jessica Dolcourt, CNET, 9 Apr 2007.

Mission Mongolia: ME designer researches IT systems on Mongolia's steppes, by Rachel Shafer, Berkeley College of Engineering News, Vol. 78, No. 5F, 2007.

Blogs

I'm conducting research in Mongolia in 2007-2008 and am maintaining a blog - Design Research for Health: Mongolia - on research and other goings-on.

I am an occasional contributor to THDBlog, a forum for discussing issues relevant to technology, health, and development.

Health Research

Information Systems for Rural Health Workers (Bayanhongor, Zavhan, and Suhbaatar, Mongolia): This project explores the design of information systems for bagiin baga emch (Mongolian rural health workers) in the context of data reporting, continuing education, and diagnostic support. The emphasis is on the use of short-term ethnographic methods to design innovative solutions. These methods will be evaluated in-situ, along the dimensions of efficacy, efficiency, and quality - this will inform design theory, in particular for international development. This research will be conducted in cooperation with an Asian Development Bank project to develop information and communication technologies (ICT) for rural health services in Mongolia. The primary field research will be conducted between June 2006 and December 2007.

Mobile Devices for Health Education (Central Valley, California): We are exploring the possibilities for using mobile devices for health education in migrant and seasonal farmworker communities in the United States. The context for our research is a community in Tulare County, California. The initial phase of this work involves an ethnographic study of the community, focusing on health information needs, current methods of information retrieval and communication, and facility with technology. The next phase will involve user-testing of prototype system(s). Please visit our project website for more information.

Design and Fuel Use of Improved Woodburning Cookstoves (Quetzaltenango, Guatemala): Jessica Granderson and I are working with Professor Kirk Smith to examine the design and efficiency (fuel use) of wood-burning cookstoves as compared to open fires in the northwestern highlands of Guatemala. Our methods include a repeatable, quantitative efficiency test (Kitchen Performance Test) and short-term participant observation. Fieldwork was completed with 17 households during July 2005. This work is part of the ongoing Stove Intervention Study. This work is generously funded by Professor Smith's Brian and Jennifer Maxwell endowed chair in Public Health.

Aurolab (Tamil Nadu, India): UC Berkeley - along with UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) - hosts an annual conference to address the role of technology in the developing world. As a part of this conference, my team was awarded a fellowship to study best practices at Aurolab, in Tamil Nadu, India. We were onsite in Madurai during June 2004 examining the role of technology in delivery of healthcare to underserved populations, with an emphasis on ophthalmic services. Please visit our project website for more information.

Graduate Coursework

@UCB: Social Epidemiology, International Maternal and Child Health, Qualitative Research Methods, Intervention Trial Design, ICT for Development, Delivery of Healthcare in the Developing World, Agent-based Modeling, Statistical Learning Theory, Mathematical Methods in Engineering, Computer Networks, Solid Modeling, Knowledge-based Systems, Product Design, Engineering Materials

@MIT: Techniques in Artificial Intelligence, Theory of Computation, Algorithms, Information & Probability Theory, Engineering Mathematics

Links

Curriculum vitae

THDBlog, a collaborative blog on technology, health & development

Mongolia blog: Design Research for Health: Mongolia

MOTTO is an independent zine published by a friend containing brief maxims designed to encourage readers to adopt a new perspective if only for a short period of time. MOTTO is printed on a postcard and sent to subscribers every month.

photos: summer travels 2004 | roadtrip | New Mexico | Guatemala 2005

former site (MIT, 1995-)

FAQ for prospective students

Hmoob: I built this utility to help me better understand the mapping between Hmoob (Hmong) words and tones If you find it useful or have feedback about how to improve it, please email me.

Contact

precede {me[dot]berkeley[dot]edu} with {jaspal[at]}
created August 2003  ::  last updated May 2008