Itzelle Medina-Perea
Information School
PhD researcher

Full contact details
Information School
Regent Court (IS)
211 Portobello
Sheffield
S1 4DP
- Profile
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I hold a BA in Information Studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and an MA in Librarianship form the University of Sheffield. Before starting my PhD, I worked for several years as information professional. I have engaged in the planning, design and implementation of information services for different communities in Mexico and the UK.
Since I started my PhD I have had the opportunity to participate as teaching assistant in a number of modules within the iSchool at Sheffield, including Designing Usable Websites, Business Intelligence and Database Design. I have also delivered a number of lectures as guest speaker for postgraduate students in Data Protection, Information Rights and Health Information Governance.
I am currently working alongside other researchers from the University of Sheffield on Living with data, a research project which aims to understand people’s knowledge and perceptions of data practices, and what they think constitute ‘fair’ data practices. For more information about this project please visit: https://livingwithdata.org/
PhD project
Title: "The socio-cultural life of personal health data flows in the UK healthcare sector."
This research explores the socio-cultural factors that promote, slow down, or block the movement of specific forms of personal patient data between different social actors within, and beyond, the health care sector in the UK.
Aim
To gain understanding of how socio-cultural factors influence the movement of particular types of patient data generated within the UK’s health care sector from their initial creation through to their use for secondary purposes in different contexts.
Expected outcomes
- To generate new knowledge on how and why socio-cultural factors shape patient data flows within healthcare sector, and what this means for how data flows bring patients into different forms of relation with other social actors.
- To develop recommendations for ‘just’ practices in data sharing, and to make patient data flows within the health sector more clear and transparent for the public.
Supervisors
Research interests
- Social and cultural factors that shape the movement of data
- Data protection and privacy issues in relation to the uses of personal data
- Publications
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Journal articles
- ‘No comment’? A study of commenting on PLOS articles. Journal of Information Science. View this article in WRRO
Conference proceedings papers
- Using data journeys to inform research design: Socio-cultural dynamics of patient data flows in the UK healthcare sector. iConference 2019 Proceedings
- ‘No comment’? A study of commenting on PLOS articles. Journal of Information Science. View this article in WRRO
- Grants
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2018 | University of Sheffield Researcher Challenge Prize
Prize given to the three best projects presented during the Researcher Challenge event. Researchers worked in teams to propose a solution to solve challenges in real projects in the healthcare sector.2018 | University of Sheffield Best Postgraduate Student Who Teaches (Nominated)
Awarded to one postgraduate student who provides outstanding teaching alongside their PhD journey.
- Professional activities
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Events and conference presentations
December 2019 | Presentation at VI SRUK Christmas seminar
Ethical Challenges of Big Data in the Healthcare SectorApril 2019 | Poster at iSchool Conference
Using data journeys to inform research design: Socio-cultural dynamics of patient data flows in the UK healthcare sectorOct 2018 | Poster at Information Behaviour Conference
“The socio-cultural factors that influence the movement of personal data in the UK healthcare sector”.May 2018 | Poster at FARR Institute-UK PhD & ECR Symposium
“The socio-Cultural life of personal health data flows in the UK healthcare sector”.May 2018 | Presentation delivered at Kings College London University, Ethical issues in social media research: current thinking
“Key elements of the General Data Protection Regulation”.