People

Phil Bernick

Assistant Professor, English

Philip Bernick is an informatics expert who straddles three worlds: that of the research scientist, humanities scholar, and technology developer. His contributions extend beyond research and theory—he actually builds systems. It is these skills and abilities that enable him to contribute to more meaningful and useful technology evaluation, assessment and policy.

His unique value-add is a propensity to work on the bleeding edge of technology, with a long-range experiential perspective and skill set that facilitates successful collaborative efforts between those three worlds—often paving the way for critical new connections that, once illuminated, seem intuitive. Philip specializes in applied collaborative problem-solving and related research, bringing 20+ years’ experience to local and long-distance tasks. As a developer he can readily identify, analyze and assess people’s needs and technology within critical, proprietary and often time-sensitive contexts. He can also design, streamline, build and/or maintain “habitable” resources specifically appropriate to those who need to use them—usually under heavy deadline pressure.

Habitability speaks to the need for computing and other resources that organically support the people they are meant to support; as much as possible, they should facilitate the work people do intuitively, in ways they need and already expect to be able to do that work, but in ways that maximize the strengths of all people and tools involved in the process. Habitability is an applied understanding of people: communities, practices, work tasks and goals in the resource development stages. Habitability goes beyond “usability,” emphasizing ways the end-products can more intuitively match their purposes—be more “invisible” and useful because they are part of familiar processes—and meet the needs and expectations of the people who use them.

Philip’s expertise in computer-supported collaborative work helps people work together effectively locally and at a distance. His experience in knowledge management (knowledge elicitation, capture, propagation, and dissemination) helps people and organizations identify, retain and share key knowledge. His expertise extends to best practices in documentation and document quality management, helping individuals and organizations improve the quality (outcomes-based effectiveness) of documents created and used internally and externally.

Philip’s work in knowledge and document management is informed by 8+ years working for organizations involved with pharmaceutical research and development (R&D); associated genres include Standard Operating Procedures, Clinical Study and Trials Reports, Method Validation Studies, Safety Analyses, Protocols, and New Drug/Device Applications (McCulley-Cuppan, Utah). His work as a software developer, researcher and project manager has also informed his approach to knowledge management. This work has included software system and interface R&D for natural (human) language processing tools used by language analysts, instructors, and students (Computing Research Lab, New Mexico), as well as interactive digital technologies for new media (Vidiom Systems, Colorado; Canal+ Technologies, California and France).

At CSPO and CNS, Philip has worked as Technology Advisor since 2006. In this role, he has contributed research and practical knowledge to the design of wiki and blog resources, trained staff and helped their technicians troubleshoot networking issues, helped with content management, and designed and implemented methods that enable multiple centers to collaborate and communicate work to and with each other, track project progress, and validate work done. For the NanoFutures project, he has designed, implemented and integrated the Nanofutures Scenarios platform.