Welcome to my site!

I go by my middle name ‘Fernando’. I am a fourth-year PhD candidate in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington. I enjoy conducting Human-computer Interaction (HCI) research with stigmatized and marginalized groups.

As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I have experienced and witnessed the negative impact of stigma on physical and mental health. Thus, I have been exploring ways to design and develop technological interventions that could minimize the deleterious impact of stigma in people’s lives.

I apply novel methods to conduct HCI research as well as explore computer-mediated social support exchange with stigmatized populations. My collaborators and I have also explored and evaluated ways in which this type of research can be improved – both from a methodological and ethical perspective – at the time of working with such sensitive and stigmatized populations (more info about this can be found here).

Lately, I have conducted research on HIV-related stigma working with health care providers and people living with HIV. Ultimately, my goal would be to co-design technological interventions that could aid in coping with HIV-related stigma.