Join the conversation: Veteran Collaborative Research & Clinical Innovation

The Dryhootch Wisconsin Warrior Summit is a regional conference designed to bring together veterans, their families, clinical providers, and others from the community interested in ensuring US military service personnel — active duty and veterans — receive everything they need for a productive life and transition to the civilian world.

This year we have the distinct pleasure of more deeply integrating the conference with research and clinical activities, bridging between a wide variety of perspectives on veteran care.

REGISTER NOW – registration closes on 9/22/17. Veterans, Active Duty, and immediate family members are free. General admission, student and professionals (clinical providers, scholars) range from $25-$125.

Special Morning Sessions:

Operation Immersion – A hands-on approach to Understanding the Military Experience for Clinicians and Scholars. Led by Dr. Mike McBride, Milwaukee VA Healthcare System. Participants will wear battle armor and eat MREs
Lived Experience of Student Veterans – Best Practices & Perspectives from Higher Education. Led by the UW-Milwaukee Military and Veterans Resource Center (MAVRC)
Academic/Scholarly research poster session

Afternoon Breakout Sessions:

Using Photovoice, Educational Comics and Storytelling to Illuminate Veteran Lived Experience in Research, led by Kara Zamora, MA, San Francisco VA Healthcare System & Raymond Facundo, MSW, US Army Veteran (OIF), Southeast Louisiana VA Healthcare System
Veteran Engagement Five Ways: Insights and Lessons Learned from Engaging Veterans at Five VA Research Centers, led by Kendra Stewart, PhD, Iowa City VA Healthcare System, National VA collaborators, and the Dryhootch Partnership for Veteran Health (MCW, VA, UWM, Marquette, MHA)
Female Veterans, Children & Family of Veterans and Active Duty Military, led by Cindy Brosig, MSN, RN, USAF Nurse Corps Veteran and Kiersten Downs, PhD, Health Science Research Specialist, Center of Innovation on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, Tampa VA Medical Center

Veteran Health & Wellness Expo

The second annual Veteran Health & Wellness Expo will be held at the Wisconsin Warrior Summit organized by the Wisconsin Veterans Chamber of Commerce. This is the premiere event for Wisconsin businesses, organizations, and resources to to connect with clinical professionals, veterans, and their families. The Wisconsin Warrior Summit brings hundreds to hear from expert speakers and presenters, attend breakout sessions, and connect with resources serving veterans and military families. Resource/information tables can be reserved for businesses ($250) and non-profits ($50) with products or services that can assist veterans.

VIEW THE FULL PROGRAM REGISTER

Keynote Speaker
Dr. Bryan Semaan, Syracuse University
School of Information Systems & Institute for Veterans and Military Families. Talk title: “A Human-Centered Vision for Technology in Support of Veteran and Military Families“

Operation Immersion
Dr. Mike McBride, Milwaukee VA Healthcare System
“Operation Immersion – A hands-on approach to Understanding the Military Experience for Clinicians and Scholars”

Jayne Holland, Interim Director, UWM MAVRC
Lived Experience of Student Veterans – Best Practices & Perspectives from Higher Education. Led by the UW-Milwaukee Military and Veterans Resource Center (MAVRC)

Keynote Speaker:

Bryan Semaan is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, where he serves as a co-director of the Behavior-Information-Technology-Society (BITS) Lab with his fantastic colleagues Jennifer Stromer-Galley and Jeff Hemsley. He is also a Research Associate with the Institute for Veteran and Military Families (IVMF) and a Research Associate with the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA). He is interested in the general areas of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), human-computer interaction (HCI), and social computing/social media.

Bryan’s research lies broadly at the intersection of the computer sciences and the social sciences. Fundamentally, he studies how people both appropriate, and are shaped by, technology in their daily lives. In other words, on a broad level, he is interested in understanding the ways in which technology is changing society, and the social and cultural practices surrounding technology use and design.

More specifically, his research investigates Technology for the social good. That is, his research agenda is centered around examining the role of ICTs in challenging contexts, where he operationalizes challenging contexts as working with vulnerable, underserved, and marginalized populations (i.e. veterans), or choosing domains of our social life (i.e. civic participation), through which ICTs can serve as a social good by enhancing the lives of citizens and effecting societal impact. To accomplish this goal his research integrates qualitative, quantitative and computational analysis to understand the activities of populations immersed in these challenging contexts, and he employs participatory design and design science approaches to further uncover complex social processes and effects, and to identify and pursue impactful design opportunities that empower and/or improve the lives of citizens.

Bryan and his students are currently working on (and have planned) several projects in this domain. To learn more about specific projects, please navigate to the following page: research projects. If you are interested in accessing published articles, please navigate to the publications section, or visit his Google Scholar Profile.

Before coming to Syracuse, Bryan was a Postdoc in the Department of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he collaborated with Dr. Scott Robertson. He obtained his Ph.D from the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), where he worked with Dr. Gloria Mark. He also graduated with a B.S. in Information and Computer Science from UCI in 2005.