The research visit was a valuable learning experience – new perspectives to the thesis

“I think it's the future. We can do so much in healthcare still to make it better,” Michelle explains how she found the topic of her thesis. “I think technology is a big part of it to make it more impactful for the people that are treated, make it easier for the people that are doing the treatment, and make it more cost effective in the grand scheme of things. I think there's still a lot to do,” she continues.

The research visit was a learning experience, which helped Michelle look at her research topic from a lot of different perspectives. “Sari Kujala is working a lot on the topic of accessibility, which is something I haven't really considered for my project, but which could or should play a really big role,” Michelle gives as an example. Michelle met a lot of different people, such as professors, postdocs, and fellow PhD students. Furthermore, she was able to join the ICT research day, where she got a very good overview of what other people are currently working on and which are the popular topics now.

In her free time, Michelle enjoyed the Helsinki area in many ways, like going to concerts, staring at the sea and feeling the wind. “Finnish people look very outdoorsy, with very nice, elegant and sporty looking clothes. This is the Nordic style everyone keeps talking about,” Michelle notes. Additionally, she tasted nice food, such as salmon soup. She wants to visit the sauna as well.  “Maybe sauna is the explanation for why everyone is so happy,” she ponders. “I really like the Finnish coffee and the very good bread. I really enjoyed especially the dark (rye) bread you have here and even told about it to my family on the phone,” she adds.

In the future Michelle would like to get more into Human-Computer Interaction, including other areas than medical perspectives. “I want to read more about HCI and see what else is out there. And when I get back to UMIT, maybe we will see if there are areas for collaboration so we keep the institute connection alive,” she explains. Michelle also plans to come back to Finland and travel around a little bit more starting from Helsinki. “Maybe see Tampere or go a little bit more north, the countryside. That would be very nice. I really enjoyed being here,” she describes. “Maedeh Ghorbanian Zolbin recommended Porvoo as well, but I didn't make it there at the weekend,” she continues. 

Michelle is also open to future research opportunities at Aalto University. “I liked Aalto campus. It feels like there's always something going on and you have all these different buildings and lunch spots. It feels to me very attractive as a university to work at,” she describes. Finally, she wants to thank all group members Sari Kujala, Saija Simola, Maedeh Ghorbanian Zolbin,and Heidi Mäkitalo, for making this possible, showing her around and eating lunch with her every day.

Read more about Michelle's group here: Institute of Medical Informatics | UMIT TIROL (link outside this webpage)

Text: Saija Simola/Aalto University