Reggie
Casanova-
Perez
he/him/él
I'm a queer, trans Latino researcher from Lima, Peru — now based in Seattle. I grew up visibly different in a city that had little patience for it, and that experience never really left me. It became a question I've been asking ever since:
"How is power encoded into the digital infrastructure of healthcare — and what does that mean for LGBTQ+ and BIPOC patients who navigate those systems?"
I'm currently completing my PhD in Biomedical and Health Informatics at the University of Washington, where I use qualitative research, queer theory, and human-centered design to study how discrimination gets built into clinical workflows and digital health systems — and how patients resist it.
Current Dissertation
Resistance Informatics: Navigating, Challenging, and Setting a Repair-Centered Agenda for Healthcare Systems
Read about the research →A little more
about me
I was born and raised in Lima, Peru, where I earned both my undergraduate degree in Informatics Engineering and a fully funded master's in Biomedical Informatics in Global Health from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia — supported by Peru's national science scholarship, CONCYTEC/CienciActiva.
My master's research brought me into Peru's public health system, working alongside regulators, facility managers, and citizens to design and prototype tools that make health systems more accountable. That question — who are these systems actually built for? — has guided everything since.
I moved to Seattle in 2018 to start my PhD, supported by an NLM predoctoral fellowship, an NLM Diversity Supplement, and a UW Population Health Initiative award. Outside of the lab, I'm also co-founding a research studio with two MD/MPH colleagues focused on public and global health research across the US, UK, and Latin America.
I served before on DEI committees at both AMIA and UW's BIME department, and on the steering committee of ACM Queer in SIG. I believe research is political, and I'm not interested in pretending otherwise.
Current Position
PhD Candidate, Biomedical and Health Informatics
University of Washington, Seattle
Languages
Spanish (native) · English (fluent) · Italian (basic)
Service
AMIA DEI Committee · BIME DEI Committee · ACM Queer in SIG
Explore my work
Three years of research, a dissertation in progress, and a growing body of published work across health informatics and HCI.
Research Projects
From documenting healthcare discrimination to building a repair-centered agenda for health informatics. Three dissertation aims, two ongoing projects.
Explore research →Publications
Peer-reviewed work published in JAMIA, AMIA, CHI, and Journal of Biomedical Informatics, with first-author and co-first-author contributions.
View publications →Curriculum Vitae
Full academic CV including research experience, funding history, service, and technical skills. Available for download as PDF.
View CV →