Sara Khor, Ethan Mickelson, & Treasure Warren

Sara Khor

Sara studies the flaws in tools that help us make medical decisions. She examines the consequences of including race as a decision factor in these tools.

Medical decisions are complicated and stressful. Decisions such as whether to pursue an elective surgery or whether to start a new cancer medication often come with serious consequences. Many decision support tools are now available to help patients and doctors make these decisions, increasingly powered by state-of-the-art big data and artificial intelligence technologies. Some of these tools include patients’ race and ethnicity as a decision factor. In this talk, Sara Khor will discuss the practice of including race as a decision factor for medical decision making and how this practice affects racial disparities.

Sara Khor is a graduate student at the Comparative Health Outcomes, Policy, And Economics Institute at the University of Washington. Her research explores the intersection of technology, decision making, and social impact.

Ethan Mickelson

Ethan treats traumatic injuries with injectable polymers – when someone loses a lot of blood, this polymer acts as a potent blood substitute to keep patients alive until they reach the hospital.

Ethan’s research is at the intersection of polymer chemistry and emergency medicine. Polymers have unique material properties that make them well-suited to treating the large-scale medical issues of trauma. Ethan’s research team has developed several polymers, including a polymer that reinforces blood clots to stabilize patient bleeding and a polymer that can replace several times its own volume worth of blood to treat severe blood loss. In his town hall talk, Ethan will share how this second polymer is able to fill an essential gap in modern medicine.

Ethan Mickelson graduated from Indiana University in 2022 with his degree in biochemistry, where he researched viral insulin-like peptides for diabetes treatment. Ethan is currently a 2nd year student in UW’s Bioengineering PhD program. His current research operates at the intersection of polymer chemistry and emergency medicine. Ethan aims to develop new polymer-based therapies for treating trauma victims with severe blood loss and impaired clot formation.

Treasure Warren

Treasure is solving the puzzle of what drives long-term changes in seawater chemistry.

Treasure Warren is a 3rd year PhD student at UW School of Oceanography. She wants to expand our understanding of how the ocean changes in response to human-caused changes in the environment, like carbon emissions. Their main goal is to understand region-specific components causing chemical changes in seawater.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle and UW Engage Science.