ART & SCIENCE
Blood Sugar Text Magic BY DYANI SABIN ’14
Carson Li ’20 Politics Major, Rhetoric and Composition Minor
When Carson Li ’20 thinks about Oberlin, he thinks about how his experiences shaped him. From serving as a head cook in his co-op to working as a writing tutor for the Writing Associate Program, Carson was challenged to reach his full potential. Carson’s experiences were made possible by alumni like you! Your generosity opens doors for Oberlin students. Now, more than ever, today’s Obies need your help. As students finished the academic year remotely and face more uncertainties next year, please consider making a gift that will support tomorrow’s Oberlin. TO MAKE YOUR GIFT TO THE ANNUAL FUND, VISIT ADVANCE.OBERLIN.EDU/DONATE OR CALL (800) 693-3167 TO SPEAK WITH A MEMBER OF THE ANNUAL FUND STAFF.
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When Sara Krugman ’08 decided to switch from insulin injections to an insulin pump to manage her type 1 diabetes, she completed just one hour of technical training. “It completely ignored the personal part of it, the social part of it, the emotional part of it, the actual experience of it, and just focused on the technological part,” Krugman says. “It was kind of appalling that this was the experience.” Krugman’s personal frustrations with the tech side of healthcare sparked a desire to change how people could relate to their healthcare devices. She entered the field of user experience and interaction design and founded Healthmade Design, an Oakland, California, healthcare design company that works with early-stage startups, clinical research teams, and software and hardware companies. Krugman became part of a revolution in the diabetic community that over the last eight years propelled a massive change in diabetic technology. “I wanted to engage with my own health more and my diabetes more and to have more control and less anxiety around managing it,” Krugman says. She came across the Copenhagen Institute for Interaction Design Programme a few years after graduating from Oberlin. “It was equally focused on technology and the human experience, and that was pretty special,” she says. User design is based upon what people know and expect and how they interact with
information. Imagine a folder on your desktop, Krugman says. The physical metaphor is how you know there are multiple pieces of paper inside—that’s user design. “Diabetes is filled with numbers, and you have to do math all the time,” Krugman says. To control blood sugar, a person needs to measure their blood sugar, deliver insulin, and estimate food. “Up until four years ago, those streams of information were not connected,” Krugman says. She’d have to look at each device, check her blood sugar number and basal insulin (slow release) level, estimate the sugar in her food, and use an equation provided by her doctor to calculate the insulin she needed. “Every morning I’d have the same bowl of granola and have to give myself insulin for it. Sometimes it was too high and sometimes too low,” she says. Since her insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor didn’t talk to each other—or to her very well—it was impossible for her to learn and
PHOTO : NORBRI A N R ON A SE , ILLUS T R AT I ON: DELPHINE LEE
Sara Krugman ’08 helped build a device that puts data on blood sugar and insulin levels back into the hands of the people it belongs to.