Tamara Vagg
Postdoctoral Researcher focusing on medical multimedia and digital health
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About

Tamara Vagg is a multidisciplinary Post-Doctoral Researcher with the Cork Adult Centre for Cystic Fibrosis (3CF) at Cork University Hospital and University College Cork. Tamara and the Cork CF Multidisciplinary Team are currently investigating how medical multimedia/digital health can be used for Cystic Fibrosis patients and medical professionals, with a special interest in Virtual Reality/TeleHealth/Virtual monitoring.

Tamara was also a co-organiser of the School of Computer Science and IT Seminar Series [CSIT Series] for its first year (2020).

Tamara’s previous research has focused on Gamification/Serious Games, Interactive 3D, Educational Animations, Mobile Multimedia, mHealth, and eHealth for Cystic Fibrosis and other areas in medicine and healthcare. Tamara successfully defended her multidisciplinary PhD in March of 2018 under the supervision of Prof Barry Plant and Dr Sabin Tabirca, which was funded by CFMATTERS. She is also a graduate of the MSc in Interactive Media from University College Cork, and of the BA in Visual Communications from Waterford Institute of Technology.

Education

Visual Communications at Waterford IT (2012)

Interactive Media at University College Cork (2015)

PG6001, PG6009, ST6013 at University College Cork

In Medicine and Multimedia (2017)



PhD Thesis title: "Virtual Reality, Gamification, and Mobile Multimedia for Cystic Fibrosis Education and Management".

Successfully defended on the 20th of March 2018 subject to Minor Corrections
External Examiner: Prof Stuart Elborn - Royal Brompton Hospital
Internal Examiner: Dr Ian Pitt - University College Cork



Seminars, Workshops, Training

  • 03-Jun-22: "Introduction to Digital inclusion and Accessibility at UCC" - Teaching for All (inclusive UCC)
  • May-22: "Digital Badge in The Effective Employee" - UCC OVPTL
  • Mar-22: "Digital Badge in The Successful Team Leader" - UCC OVPTL
  • 15-Nov-21: "Research Integrity: Specialist" (Certificate) - Epigeum Online Course System
  • 15-Nov-21: "Research Integrity: Core" (Certificate) - Epigeum Online Course System
  • July-21: "Good Clinical Practice" (Certificate) - HRB Clinical Research Facilities Cork (CRF-C)
  • Jun-21: "Digital Badge in the Connected Curriculum" - UCC Skills Centre
  • 8-10-Dec-20: "Project Management" - Dr Joanne Fearon School of Food and Nutritional Sciences
  • 11-Dec-20: "Research Integrity - Engineering and Technology" - Epigeum Online Course System
  • Oct->Nov-19: "Digital Badge in Successful Presentations- Effectively Articulating Knowledge (SPEAK)" - UCC Skills Centre
  • 27-Jun-19: "Clinical Innovation Award - Workshop and Webinar" - HiHi
  • 25-Jun-19: "Workshop on Compliance with the Health Research Regulations 2018 Webinar" - HRDC
  • 17-Jun-19: "Canvas Training" - Instructional Design, UCC
  • 21-May-19: "Digital Badge in Universal Design for Teaching and Learning (Higher Education)" - CIRTL UCC
  • 01-May-19: "IT Security Awareness Training" - UCC IT Security
  • 09-Apr-19: "European Research Council (ERC) Funding Opportunities (covering the ERC Starter, Consolidator, Advanced and Synergy Grant Schemes)" - UCC RSS
  • 08-Apr-19: "Viva Workshop for Academic/Research Staff" - Dean of Graduate Studies, UCC
  • 21-Mar-19: "Good Clinical Practice for Medical Devices" - Dr Ruben Keane (CRF-C) and Jackie O’Leary (INFANT), UCC
  • 20-Mar-19: "Proposal Writing and Costing Workshop" - Imma Zoppi, Caitriona Doyle (Research Support Services), UCC
  • 29/30-Nov-18: "Odyssey Programme" (Certificate) - Mary Kate O’Regan (HR), UCC
  • 21-Nov-18: "Introduction to Clinical Research" - CRF-C, UCC
  • 06-Nov-18: "Developing Your Career – An Action Oriented Approach" - Anne Gannon & Mary Ward, HR Managers
  • 01-Nov-18: "Editing & Proofreading for Academics" - Sarah Marriot, Plain English
  • 03-Oct-18: "Effective Presentation Skills Workshop" - Anne Gannon, UCC
  • 27-Sept-18: "How to Write a Competitive Proposal for Horizon 2020" - Sean McCarthy, Hyperion
  • 25-Sept-18: "Effective Team Working – Your Role" - Anne Gannon, UCC
  • 07+21-Jun-18: "User Interview Training" - Emma Hurley, Applied Psychology UCC
  • 15+22-May-18: "Digital Badge in Postgraduate Supervision" - Graduate Studies Office UCC
  • 18-May-18: "UCC GDPR Training (online)" - UCC GDPR - Certificate
  • 11-May-18: "GDPR Information Session" - UCC GDPR

  • 16-Nov-18: "Project Management Parts 1 & 2" - Dr Joanne Fearon, UCC
  • 09-Nov-18: "Funding Your Research" - Research Support Services, UCC
  • 28-Sept-18: "Managing Yourself Through Change" - Anne Gannon, UCC
  • 21-Sept-18: "Communicating your Research" - Dr. Joanne Fearon, UCC
  • 14-Sept-18: "Leading a Research Team" - Anne Gannon & Mary O'Regan, UCC
  • 27-Jul-18: "Research Planning Tools and Techniques" - Dr Joanne Fearon, UCC
  • 20-Jul-18: "Developing and Consolidating Your Career" - UCC Careers Services
  • 13-Jul-18: "Innovation & Entrepreneurship" - UCC Ignite
  • 08-Jun-18: "Supervising & Working with PhD Students" - UCC CITRL (The Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning)
  • 25-May-18: "Career Planning for Research Staff" - UCC Careers Services
  • 27-Apr-18: "Research Integrity" - UCC Research Support Services (RSS)

  • 3-4-Jun-21: “Digital respiratory medicine – realism vs futurism” - European Respiratory Society (ERS) Digital Health Summit
  • 15-17-Dec-20: “Health Challenges and COVID: Enabling Monitoring, Exercise, and Rehabilitation using Wearables” - SENDoc
  • 19-Nov-20: “AR/VR transforming businesses” - Cork Smart Gateway Webinar
  • 07-May-19: A BIOELECTRONICS APPROACH TO BUILDING 3D MODELS OF THE HUMAN GUT-BRAIN-MICROBIOME AXIS - Dr Róisín M. Owens
  • 18-Feb-19: The embodied nature of Virtual Reality: how virtual action and navigation affect cognition - Claudia Repetto
  • 07-Dec-19: Embodied Expressive Interfaces are computer interfaces capable of communicating high-level messages (e.g., emotional states, social bonds) while interacting with a human user through multimodal signals - Maurizio Mancini as part of the Interaction-Design, E-learning and Speech: The IDEAS Research Group
  • 07-Dec-18: "Sorc Re-Imagined" - Patrick Egan as part of the Interaction-Design, E-learning and Speech: The IDEAS Research Group
  • 24-Oct-18: "A VIRTUAL REALITY GAME FOR TEACHING GRAPH THEORY:A STUDY OF ITS EFFECTIVENESS IN IMPROVING OUTCOMES AND ENCOURAGING AUTONOMY" - Larkin Cunningham as part of the Digital Humanities Research Colloquium
  • 26-Sept-18: "Maximising and Measuring Citation Performance" - UCC Research Support Services (RSS)
  • 05-Sept-18: "F.A.I.R. Data Management" - UCC Research Support Services (RSS)
  • 18-May-18: "More than just a good idea – preparing for research collaborations with Service Users" - The School of Nursing and Midwifery in association with ENGAGE Interdisciplinary Clinical mental health Research network
  • 24-Jan-17: "Turbocharge Your Writing" - Prof Liam Marnane
  • 7-June-16: "Beginners LaTeX" - Dr Peter Flynn

Teaching Experience

Lectures

Computer Science Department, University College Cork (UCC)

MSc Interactive Media: CS6102
Date: November 2019
Delivered 1 third of lectures and labs for CS6102. Lectures given on:
1) An introduction to Graphics and Graphic Design
2) Advanced Graphic Design
3) Blender and Python
Also wrote and marked a question for the Semester 1 exam paper.

Guest Lectures

Business Information Systems (BIS), University College Cork (UCC)

MSc Digital Health:
Date: January 2019 + 2020 Guest lecture on "The role of Virtual Reality(VR) in Medicine"

Computer Science Department, University College Cork (UCC)

MSc Interactive Media:
Date: November 2016 + 2017 + 2018. Guest lecture followed by a lab on the basics of using Python in Blender Blender v 2.7.1 Python v 3.1

Date: April 2016 + 2017. Guest lecture followed by a lab on a simple introduction to PhoneGap PhoneGap CLI HTML, JavaScript, CSS

ICT Teacher Workshop:
Date: April 2015 + January 2019. 2015 Secondary School Teachers attended a workshop on the basics of animation. Technologies used: Adobe After Effects
2019 Secondary School Teachers attended a workshop on the basics of web design. Technologies used: HTML, CSS

Tutoring

Computer Science Department, University College Cork (UCC)

Munster Programming Training (Cycle 1 Senior):
Date: 2017 - 2020 4th and 5th year secondary School Students attending the MPT Senior program were taught the basics of web design by creating web pages and portfolio sites. Technologies used: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript

Munster Programming Training (Cycle 1 Junior):
Date: 2017 - 2020 1st and 2nd year secondary School Students attending the MPT Junior program were taught the basics of web design by creating web pages and portfolio sites. Technologies used: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript

MSc Interactive Media & MSc in Computer Science (June 2017)
BSc in Computer Science (October 2017)
A 2 days PhoneGap workshop delivered to MSc students undergoing their summer research project and BSc preparing for their final year projects. The workshop covers the basics of Phonegap, the PhoneGap Desktop Tool, PhoneGap CLI, Frameworks (Framework 7), and databases (local and external). Lab work used the following technologies: PhoneGap Desktop Tool PhoneGap CLI HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, JSON, Ajax, Php, MySQL, SQLite

HEA Web Animation Tutor (Senior Cycle 2017 - 2018):
A one week summer camp for secondary school students to learn the basics of web animation/design. As part of this module students learnt the basic principles of animations, CSS animations, an introduction to programming with JavaScript, and the HTML canvas. Lab work used the following technologies: HTML5 General HTML Canvas CSS3 CSS Animations CSS Transforms CSS Transitions JavaScript

Munster Programming Training (Cycle 1):
Date: 2016 + 2017 Secondary School Students attending the MPT program were taught the basics of web animation by creating a simple game. Technologies used: Year 1: Adobe Flash Pro Year 2: HTML Canvas, JavaScript, CSS

Transition Year Student (TY) Work Experience:
Date: March 2015. A TY student was taught the following technologies while on work experience (1 week. Basic Web Technologies: HTML5, Javacript, CSS. Basic 3D modelling: Blender. PhoneGap.

Demonstrating

Computer Science Department, University College Cork (UCC)

MSc Interactive Media:
CS6102 Graphics and Graphic Design Action Script 2, Action Script 3, Adobe Flash, Python Sept 2014 - Dec 2017
CS6111 3D Graphics and Modelling Blender Sept 2015 - Dec 2017
CS6116 Mobile Multimedia Xcode: Objective C & Swift, Flash Sept 2014 - Dec 2017
CS6105 Future and Emerging Technologies X3d, Three.js Sept 2015 - Dec 2017
CS6100 Authoring Processing Sept 2016 - Dec 2017
Munster Programming Training (Cycle 1):
Python Programming 2015-2017
Web Design 2015-2017
Video Production 2015-2017
HEA IT Summer Camp:
Film Studies 2016




  • Supervision

MSc Data Science and Analytics

Date: Summer 2019. Student Name: Prasanth Kanderi. Research Project: The Virtual Doctor.

MSc Interactive Media

Date: Autumn 2019. Student Name: Aine Curran. Research Project: A Virtual Doctor: Optimising Unscheduled visits for Patients with Cystic Fibrosis (CF).

Date: Summer 2019. Student Name: Sehar Siddiqi. Research Project: A Virtual Avatar with Sentiment Analysis.

Date: Autumn 2018. Student Name: Ciara Landers. Research Project: A Web Application to Monitor Health and Wellbeing of Cystic Fibrosis Patients.

Date: Summer 2018. Student Name: Sean Stanton. Research Project: Personal Management Application for Cystic Fibrosis.

Date: Summer 2018. Student Name: Lauren Morley. Research Project: A Mobile Application to Assist Cystic Fibrosis Patients with Their Daily Nutrition Intake.

Date: Summer 2017. Student Name: Seán Barry. Research Project: An mHealth application focusing on wellbeing for those with mental health conditions.

Date: Summer 2017. Student Name: Hugh O' Dwyer. Research Project: An mHealth application focusing on wellbeing for pharmaceutical professionals.

MSc Computer Science

Date: Summer 2015. Student Name: You Yuan Tan. Research Project: Cystic Fibrosis Games.

Research Grants



Project Funding Body Date Award
Post Doctorate Funding January 2023 Part-time researcher Salary for 2 years
Developing an online platform to promote oral health among the Cystic Fibrosis community HRB Knowledge Translation Awards (KTA) 2022 September 2022 €23,000
Development and testing of a novel multi-trial programmable animation platform: An education intervention to improve the efficency and success rate of pre-screening and subsequent recruitment. HRB-TMRN Study Within a Trial (SWAT) Award 2019 October 2019 €25,000
Virtual Reality Equipment for Patient Focused Research CUH Charity May 2018 €6,733
Virtual Reality Experience for Patients with CF Irish Lung Foundation November 2017 €17,000
Post Doctorate Funding CF Ireland October 2017 Researcher Salary for 2 years
PhD Funding CFMATTERS October 2014 €20,000 per year


Research Awards

  • Finalist Award for project titled: "Towards A Low Cost Monitor-Based Augmented Reality Training Platform for At-Home Ultrasound Skill Development" - Group project as part of the Medical Augmented Reality Summer School 2021 (MARSS21)
  • Short listed & 2nd Place Winner at the 21st National Cystic Fibrosis Meeting 2021 to give a Snapshot Oral Presentation for Poster Presentation (7 chosen out of 29)
  • Short listed at the 19th National Cystic Fibrosis Meeting 2019 to give a Snapshot Oral Presentation for Poster Presentation (7 chosen out of 29)
  • Best paper award at The 6th Irish Conference on Game-Based Learning (IGBL2016), Dublin, September 2016. Paper title:"A Cystic Fibrosis Virtual Reality Gamified Experience for Medical Students"

Research - Academic Publications

Plenaries and Workshops

Conference Presentations

    Presentation Title: "Cystic Fibrosis Internet Postings; a two year comparative study 2015 & 2019", Poster Presentation at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Congress, [virtual] 2021

    Presentation Title: "P097 Who's talking about cystic fibrosis? The changing landscape of internet postings related to cystic fibrosis: a two-year comparative study", Poster Presentation at 44th European Cystic Fibrosis Conference, [virtual], 2021.

    Presentation Title: "P097 Who's talking about cystic fibrosis? The changing landscape of internet postings related to cystic fibrosis: a two-year comparative study", Poster Presentation at 44th European Cystic Fibrosis Conference, [virtual], 2021.

    Presentation Title: "Virtual cystic fibrosis doctor: design, development, and user experience pilot study", Poster Presentation at 44th European Cystic Fibrosis Conference, [virtual], 2021.

    Presentation Title: "P140 TeCC (TeleMedicine, Cystic Fibrosis, Corona-Virus) study in a previous telemedicine-naive centre: clinical challenges, outcomes, and user experience in the first six months of a global pandemic", Poster Presentation at 44th European Cystic Fibrosis Conference, [virtual], 2021.

    Presentation Title: "P040 Compassionate use triple therapy CFTR modulation (Kaftrio®) in severe disease. Single-centre, real-world clinical outcomes, safety and tolerability", Poster Presentation at 44th European Cystic Fibrosis Conference, [virtual], 2021.

    Presentation Title: "P235 Using virtual reality to enhance the transition process.", Poster Presentation at 42nd European Cystic Fibrosis Conference, Liverpool, 2019.

    Presentation Title: " P229 Improving undergraduate medical student education in cystic fibrosis using a locally developed cystic fibrosis-specific virtual reality tool.", Poster Presentation at 42nd European Cystic Fibrosis Conference, Liverpool, 2019.

    Presentation Title: "Using Virtual Reality to Complement the Traditional Transition Model", Poster Presentation at New Horizons in Medical Research, Cork, 2018.

    Presentation Title: "mHealth and Serious Game Analytics for Cystic Fibrosis Adults", Virtual Presentation at The 31st IEEE CBMS International Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems (IEEE CBMS 2018), Karstad Sweden, 2018

    Presentation Title: "A mHealth Patient Passport for Adult Cystic Fibrosis Patients", Oral Presentation at 7th EAI International Conference on Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare, Vienna, 2017

    Presentation Title: "A Serious Mobile Game App For Adults With Cystic Fibrosis", Oral Presentation at the Irish Conference on Game-Based Learning 2017 (iGBL), Cork, 2017.

    Presentation Title: "A mHealth App with Game for Adult Cystic Fibrosis Patients", Poster Presentation at New Horizons in Medical Research, Cork, 2016.

    Presentation Title: "Using Immersive Virtual Reality for Medical Education; A case study for Cystic Fibrosis", Poster Presentation at the INFANT Centre Research Day, University College Cork, Cork, 2016.

    Presentation Title: "A Cystic Fibrosis Virtual Reality Gamified Experience for Medical Students", Oral Presentation at The 6th Irish Conference on Game-Based Learning (IGBL2016), Dublin, 2016.

    Presentation Title: "An Interactive Virtual Reality Game-Based Educational Application for Cystic Fibrosis", Oral Presentation at the 4th Annual Picteilin Conference, Dundalk, 2016.

    Presentation Title: "Interactive Bronchial Tree E-Learning Environment", Virtual Presentation for the 7th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies, Barcelona, 2015.

    Presentation Title: "A Multi-Platform Interactive 3D Educational Application for Bronchoscopy & Bronchial Anatomy", Oral Presentation for the 18th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Interventions, Workshop on Interactive Medical Image Computing (IMIC), Munich, 2015.

Research Presentations

    Presentation Title: "CF Online: Understanding Internet Postings and Updates on Virtual Transition", Oral Presentation for Cystic Fibrosis Ireland (CFI) Annual Conference, [Virtual], 2021.

    Presentation Title: "Who’s talking about CF? The changing landscape of internet postings related to CF, a two year comparative study ", Poster Presentation for 21st National Cystic Fibrosis Clinical Meeting, Killarney, 2021.

    Presentation Title: "The Virtual CF Centre and Transition", Oral Presentation for Cystic Fibrosis Ireland (CFI) Annual Conference, Carlow, 2019.

    Presentation Title: "Using Virtual Reality to Enhance the Transition Process", Poster Presentation for 19th National Cystic Fibrosis Clinical Meeting, Killarney, 2019.

    Presentation Title: "Improving undergraduate medical student education in CF using a locally developed CF specific VR tool", Poster Presentation for 19th National Cystic Fibrosis Clinical Meeting, Killarney, 2019.

    Presentation Title: "Research Update: Medical Multimedia in Improving CF Care and Enhancing Independent Living ~ The Cork Experience", Oral Presentation for Cystic Fibrosis Ireland (CFI) Annual Conference, Dundalk, 2018.

    Presentation Title: "Dissemination, Outreach and Training", Oral Presentation for CFMATTERS General Assembly, Cork, 2017.

    Presentation Title: "Visualisation and Simulation For Cystic Fibrosis - Yearly Review", Poster Presentation for Yearly Review at the Western Gateway Building UCC, Cork, 2017.

    Presentation Title: "Visualisation and Simulation For Cystic Fibrosis - Yearly Review", Poster Presentation for Yearly Review at the Western Gateway Building UCC, Cork, 2016.

    Presentation Title: "Visualisation and Simulation For Cystic Fibrosis - Research Overview", Oral Presentation at the CFMATTERS steering committee meeting, Kinsale, Cork, 2016.

Invited Presentations

    Presentation Title: "Developing a Virtual Reality Transition Tool for CF", Oral Presentation for UCC 'XR Research Group', WGB Cork, November 2019.

    Presentation Title: "Virtual Reality Experiences, mHealth and eLearning for lung diseases: the present, not the future", Oral Presentation for the Cork University Hospital Grand Rounds, CUH Cork, April 2017.

    Presentation Title: "A Multi-Platform Interactive 3D Educational Application for Bronchoscopy, Bronchial Anatomy and Cystic Fibrosis Education", Oral Presentation for the Interaction-Design, E-learning and Speech (IDEAS) research group meeting, Cork, 2016.

    Presentation Title: “The Lung Experience", Oral Presentation for the User Experience Design Summer School, WIT, Waterford, 2016.

Research Projects

Multidisciplinary Medical Multimedia for CF

CF Visualiser

Interactive 3D Website

Patient Education Application

For bedside tablets in the Cork University Hospital

Lung Anatomy Quiz

Interactive 3D website (part of the Lung Experience Project)

Travel Through a CF Lung

Interactive 3D CF Tool (part of the Lung Experience Project)

VR CF 2015

VR app for Rift DK2(part of the Lung Experience Project)

VR CF 2018

VR app for HTC Vive(part of the Lung Experience Project)

Huffy Bird

Serious mHealth Game for CF (Android)

My CF Passport

A mHealth Patient passport

Virtual Transition

A VR application to help CF patients transitioning to adult care

Other Projects

Collaborative Projects

Cranial Nerves

Educational Whiteboard Animation

Tooth Morphology

Interactive 3D Education Tool

Embryology Animation

Interactive Educational Animation

Medical Illustration

2D illustrations

Video Editing

George Boole Mathematical Sciences Conference

Immuno View

Interactive Graphic for Undergraduate students

SSFC

Web Developer

HRB-TMRN Study Within a Trial (SWAT)

Developer

Interactive Anatomy Tool

Developer

logo of the Cork Centre for Cystic Fibrosis Control
Logo for CFMATTERS
Logo for CF Ireland
Logo for CRF-C
Logo for UCC
logo of the Computing Resources for Research Group
Logo for Mixed Augmented Virtual Reality and Immersive Computing Group
Logo for Interaction-Design, E-learning and Speech: The IDEAS Research Group

Contact Me

The best way to get in contact with me is via email: tamara.vagg@ucc.ie