Kirsten Ostherr

WEBSITE(S)| Medical Humanities | Department of English

Research Interests:
Kirsten Ostherr is the author of two books, Medical Visions: Producing the Patient through Film, Television and Imaging Technologies (Oxford, 2013) and Cinematic Prophylaxis: Globalization and Contagion in the Discourse of World Health (Duke, 2005), and numerous articles. Her current research is on information and communication technologies in aging and end-of-life care, patient narratives in EHRs, and the role of simulation as a mediator between human and technological forms of medical expertise.

Her current book project is called Quantified Health: Making Stories from Data in the Algorithmic Age. She is Director of the Medical Futures Lab and has spoken to audiences at the White House, the World Health Organization, the National Library of Medicine, TEDx, the mHealth Summit, Medicine X, the Louisville Innovation Summit, and universities and conferences worldwide.

Bio:
Kirsten Ostherr, PhD, MPH, is a media scholar and health researcher who works on the humanistic dimensions of making patient data into meaningful stories. She treats communication and representation as core techniques for solving health problems, using collaborative, participatory design to improve patient care with students, clinicians, and startups in the Texas Medical Center and beyond.