Terika McCall earns first PhD in health informatics from Carolina The Carolina Health Informatics Program (CHIP) celebrated a significant milestone this summer when Terika McCall became the first student to graduate with her Doctor of Philosophy in Health Informatics. CHIP launched its PhD program in the fall of 2016. Just one year later, the National Institutes of Health–National Library of Medicine awarded a T15 Biomedical Informatics and Data Science Training Grant to CHIP Director and Professor Javed Mostafa. The highly competitive award provides financial support and training opportunities for CHIP’s PhD students, as well as funding for post-doctoral researchers. McCall, a member of the initial T15 cohort, said she chose the CHIP program because its interdisciplinary nature offered her the chance to combine her interests in public health, technology, and business. She had previously earned a Master of Business Administration from Wake Forest University and a Master of Public Health from the University of Michigan. “I felt that it would be a great place for me to grow as a researcher,” she said. “I remember sharing my research interests with Dr. Mostafa and he was completely supportive. That made me feel comfortable with my decision.” McCall’s dissertation examines the attitudes and perceptions of African American women towards using mental
health services, and the feasibility of using mobile technology to deliver those services and other resources to help manage anxiety and depression. She also worked to develop and conduct usability testing of a prototype mental health mobile app tailored to help African American women manage anxiety and depression. Saif Khairat, McCall’s dissertation advisor and an assistant professor with CHIP and the UNC School of Nursing, said McCall’s research focus was especially critical from a health equity perspective. “African American women have yet to receive adequate digital mental health care, and this is what she has been working for,” Khairat said. “Her work will help bring attention to an area of research in clinical medicine that is yet to be fully explored.” McCall started a postdoctoral research fellowship in biomedical informatics and data science at Yale University this fall. Going forward, she said she plans to continue working to find ways to use technology to reduce health disparities in underserved communities. “I would like to launch a health tech startup that is focused on making health care more accessible and affordable,” she said. “I am a big advocate for [mobile health] interventions because I believe the best solutions incorporate technology that patients can already access and need minimal education on how to use.”
Terika McCall, PhD, MBA, MPH
McCall said she appreciated the guidance she received from Khairat and her dissertation committee members, Javed Mostafa, Todd Schwartz, and Fei Yu from UNC and Paul Fontelo from the NLM, as well as the support of the CHIP administrative staff, particularly CHIP PhD Program Coordinator Lindsey Womack. Womack said McCall’s passion, drive, and positive attitude made working with her a joy. “The pace she set in her research inspired the program to grow and stretch to meet her needs as a student,” Womack said. “As our first graduating doctoral student, she helped shaped the PhD program at CHIP and we are better for it!”
Javed Mostafa finishing term as JASIST editor Javed Mostafa, Professor and Director of the Carolina Health Informatics Program (CHIP), will complete his fiveyear term as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST) in January 2021. Mostafa brought extensive editorial and publishing experience when he accepted the role as editor in 2015. He had served as an editorial board member of JASIST from 2012-15 and as an associate editor for ACM Transactions on Information Systems (ACM TOIS) and ACM Transactions on Internet Technology (ACM TOIT). During Mostafa’s tenure, JASIST maintained its reputation as the premiere journal in information science and
technology. Responding to the complex nature of the field, Mostafa restructured and expanded the editorial board to ensure coverage of expertise. His editorial team was complemented by Managing Editor Julia Khanova (PhD ’13). In the announcement of his departure as editor, the ASIS&T Board recognized Mostafa for his outreach efforts to develop junior authors and his coverage of new intellectual areas through special themes. In addition to CHIP, Mostafa directs the Laboratory of Applied Informatics at UNC-Chapel Hill. He has a dual appointment with SILS and the UNC School of Medicine, Biomedical Research Imaging Center.
22 UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS)
Professor Javed Mostafa
