Terika McCall
Assistant Professor of Health Informatics, Yale School of Public Health. Founder & Director, Consumer Health Informatics Lab (CHIL@Yale).
About Dr. McCall
Scholar, designer & advocate for health equity
A first-gen student born to teen parents in Opa-Locka, Florida, Dr. McCall was taught the value of education and community service early. Her research centers on inclusive, community-centered design of digital health technologies to advance health equity for historically marginalized populations.
Her interdisciplinary work integrates health informatics, human-centered design, behavioral science, and implementation research to build culturally responsive digital interventions. In 2020 she made history as the first PhD graduate in Health Informatics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, later completing postdoctoral training in Medical Informatics at Yale School of Medicine.
An internationally recognized scholar, she has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Medical Internet Research, and holds leadership roles in the American Medical Informatics Association.
Education
PhD, Health Informatics
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
MBA, Management
Wake Forest University
MPH, Health Behavior & Health Education
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
BS, Health Science Education
University of Florida
Selected Honors
- Aspen Ideas: Health Fellow
- JEDI Extraordinary Contributions Award — ISRII
- Health Equity Research Award — Yale School of Public Health
Consulting
Designing better digital health tools
With over 10 years of experience, Dr. McCall advises researchers, startup founders, and non-profits on creating consumer health products — from clinical decision support tools to mobile apps and wearables for diverse populations.
Whether you're launching a new product or refining an existing one, she ensures your digital health tool is culturally responsive, engaging, accessible, and aligned with the needs of your patients, clients, caregivers, clinicians, and communities.
Understand context of use
Who uses the tool, what tasks it performs, and where or how it operates within the environments and workflows.
Specify user requirements
Translate insights into clear, actionable design criteria.
Design
Produce design solutions that meet your user requirements.
Evaluate
Usability and pilot testing with your intended users.
Speaking
Lectures, panels & keynotes
A sought-after speaker on designing inclusive health tech to advance health equity, Dr. McCall is regularly invited to deliver lectures and speak on panels across academic, community, and industry settings.
Training
Teaching the next generation of health tech designers
Dr. McCall created the course she always wanted to take — combining public health, business, human-computer interaction, and health informatics into BIS 640 / SBS 640: User-Centered Design of Digital Health Tools at Yale School of Public Health.
She has also co-instructed a short course to empower exonerated individuals to build a VR app supporting the exoneree community, and her lab leads DiscoTech sessions introducing local high school students to health tech design. Dr. McCall has also co-led workshop trainings for mental health, public health, and human-computer interaction professionals on inclusive design best practices and participatory research methods.
“Overall, this course has fundamentally influenced how I approach the design and evaluation of health technologies. It reinforced that context, equity, and user experience are not secondary considerations, but central determinants of impact. I am grateful for the opportunity to engage with these ideas and will carry this perspective forward in my future work.”
