Health Innovation Professor Wenhao David Huang

Why I'm Motivated to be a HIP Faculty Member:

To transfer my research insights to the context of medicine and medical education, to address pertinent issues in better serving increasingly diverse populations in our communities.

Carle Illinois College of Medicine Related Research

Professor Huang's overall research accomplishments and trajectory, guided by design theories grounded in cognitive, motivational, and organizational processing in learning, are centered on two themes: Technology Research and Decision Engagement. Both themes intend to improve learning and decision outcomes for diverse populations. To generate tangible impacts he purposefully connects his research with teaching and community-driven services. Such impacts are represented by publications, research funding from national scientific and health research agencies, advising of doctoral students, teaching with massive open and open courses (MOOCs), and service engagement with interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners. In technology research his work is focused on improving motivational design and evaluation of technology-enriched and -enabled learning environments (TEELE) grounded in game-based learning strategies. In decision engagement he transfers his findings in motivational design to design and implement scaffolds for decision-making engagement of individuals, organizations, and communities. His research from both themes has advanced the fields of mobile health innovation adoption, public health policy implementation, and the development of patient- researcher. In the context of health innovation, his research expands our abilities to promote equitable patient-centered health care outcomes and to support patients’ informed decision-making processes for our increasingly diverse populations.