PhD Student · Human-Centered Computing

Jasmine
McKenzie

5th-year PhD student at the University of Florida advancing health equity through culturally relevant, technology-based health literacy interventions for the Black community.

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About Me

Building inclusive technology
for meaningful change.

Jasmine McKenzie is a mixed-methods researcher in the Computing for Social Good Lab at the University of Florida under the supervision of Dr. Juan Gilbert. In Human-Centered Computing, her research focuses on designing AI-mediated technology to improve health literacy, equity, and access. She is currently studying how people use generative AI to make sense of new health diagnoses, examining the sensemaking strategies and interaction patterns that emerge when patients turn to conversational AI to process clinical information. Her work centers on the design and evaluation of a behavior-informed conversational AI system, with implications for how generative AI can be designed as a thinking partner for patients navigating the gap between clinical care and personal understanding. Jasmine also maintains a secondary research interest in AI ethics and literacy, with a focus on environmental sustainability.

Jasmine holds a passion for mentorship, scholarship, and service. She has worked with the CRA’s UR2PHD program, mentoring students interested in pursuing research. She is the 2026–2027 President of the Black Graduate Student Organization at UF and a recipient of the GEM Fellowship and the McKnight Doctoral Fellowship. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Claflin University. Upon graduating in May 2027, Jasmine aims to return to an HBCU as a faculty member to invest in the next generation of scholars.

Soft Skills

  • Team Leadership & Project Management
  • Communication & Public Speaking
  • Problem Solving & Time Management
  • Data Analysis & Research Methods

Research Interests

What I work on.

My research sits at the intersection of health, equity, and technology — with three core threads guiding my work.

Experience

Professional Experience

Research, teaching, and service roles that have shaped my path as an HCC scholar.

  1. May 2022 – Present

    Research Assistant

    Computing for Social Good Lab · Gainesville, FL

    Project: Exploring the Interdisciplinary Design Approaches to Technological Health Literacy Interventions

    • Conducted a comprehensive review of technological interventions aimed at improving health literacy, resulting in a paper analyzing the success and backing of the interventions and end-user involvement.
    • Identified the need for community-specific measures such as determining community needs, involving stakeholders, building trust, and understanding learning styles before creating health literacy interventions for the Black community.
    • Discovered that conversational agents and mobile apps were popular intervention methods in the studies reviewed, with potential for use in the Black community.
    • Scoping Review
    • Health Literacy
    • UX Design

  2. May 2023 – July 2023

    Visiting Researcher

    Pacific Northwest National Laboratory · Richland, WA

    Projects: Trust in Generative Language Models · Effect of Expert Explanation on ML Performance Prediction

    • Surveyed common trust violations between Human-AI teams, specifically when using generative language models in the workplace.
    • Examined the techniques used to mitigate and restore trust to improve reliance on generative language models in Human-AI teams.
    • Designed a within-subjects study focused on evaluating the effects of expert-derived confidence scores and verbal explanations on people's understanding of an ML classifier's performance.
    • Developed a survey to determine if expert-derived verbal explanations were more effective at helping electrical grid operators predict the classifier's performance than confidence scores.
    • Human-AI Teams
    • LLMs
    • Study Design

  3. May 2021 – July 2021

    GEM PhD Intern

    Pacific Northwest National Laboratory · Richland, WA

    Project: Cybersecurity Threats in Implantable Medical Devices

    • Surveyed cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities in medical institutions and implantable medical devices, providing insights for risk reduction.
    • Developed a plan for reducing the risk of cyberattacks in healthcare, requiring collaboration across multiple stakeholders.
    • Investigated the impact of basic cybersecurity education and training on healthcare workers' ability to detect potential cybersecurity risks.
    • Contributed to the creation of a safer and more secure healthcare environment through the understanding of cybersecurity risks and the development of mitigation strategies.
    • Cybersecurity
    • Healthcare
    • Medical Devices

Publications

Research Papers

Peer-reviewed work spanning computing education, health-equity research, accessibility, and human-AI interaction.

  1. Published in 2026

    Atkinson, A., Myrthil, T., Stofer, K. A., McKenzie, J., Smith, A., Ojo, D., Naikodi, M. A., Bista, D., CHEN, Y., Obajemu, O., Regmi, N., Broaddus, B. A., Zare, A., Anthony, L., & Waisome, J. A. M.

    Research Participants who Helped Design AI/ML Data Training Interface Trend toward Increased Interest in Research Careers

    2026 ASEE Southeastern Section Conference

    View Paper on ACM Digital Library (opens in new tab)

  2. Published in 2025

    Coggins, W., McKenzie, J., Youm, S., Mummaleti, P., Gilbert, J., Ragan, E., & Dorr, B. J.

    That Ain’t Right: Assessing LLM Performance on QA in African American and West African English Dialects

    9th Widening NLP Workshop

    View Paper on ACM Digital Library (opens in new tab)

  3. Published in 2025

    Morrow, N., Irving, A., McKenzie, J., Smith, A., & Gilbert, J.E.

    The Invisible Participants: How Computing Education Research Fails Students with Disabilities Exemplary Award

    RESPECT 2025, ACM

    View Paper on ACM Digital Library (opens in new tab)

  4. Published in 2025

    Thomas, S.V., McKenzie, J., Smith, A., & Gilbert, J.E.

    User-Centered Design for Career and Academic Motivation in Student-Athletes

    Learning and Collaboration Technologies, HCII 2025 · Springer

    View Paper on Springer (opens in new tab)

  5. Published in 2024

    Gilbert, J.E., McKenzie, J., Smith, A., Jennings, J., & Hart, A.

    Two-Step Ballot Verification: Mitigating the Impact of the Hawthorne Effect on Vote-Flipping Studies

    Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) Annual Meeting

    View Paper (opens in new tab)

  6. Published in 2024

    McNamara, K., Hart, A.B., Morrow, N., McKenzie, J., & Gilbert, J.E.

    Plain Language to Address Dimensionality in Feature-Contribution Explanations for End-Users

    HCI International 2024 Posters, HCII 2024 · Springer

    View Paper on Springer (opens in new tab)

  7. Published in 2023

    Gilbert, J.E., McKenzie, J., Smith, A., & Thompson, L.

    Evaluating New Technology for Equitable and Secure Voter Verification

    Tech Policy Press · Technology and Democracy

    Read Article on Tech Policy Press (opens in new tab)

Recognition

Honors & Awards

Certifications, training, and recognitions from across my academic journey.

Contact

Let's connect.

Open to research collaborations, job opportunities, fellowship conversations, internships, and speaking with anyone working on technology that matters.

jasminemckenzie@ufl.edu Download CV (opens in new tab) LinkedIn (opens in new tab)