About the H-PHACTORS Director

About Safa Elkefi

el kefi

Safa Elkefi is an Assistant Professor at Binghamton University and Director of the H-PHACTORS Lab. Her research focuses on health informatics, human-AI decision support, immersive VR in patient care and cancer prevention interventions.

Education

  • PhD in engineering management and graduate certificate in healthcare systems and data analytics - Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey
  • MEng in industrial engineering - National Engineering School of Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia.

Areas of expertise

  • Health Informatics
  • Human-AI interaction and decision support
  • Extended reality in patient care
  • Human factors
  • Human-centered design
  • Population health, Equity and community-based interventions
  • Healthcare delivery systems engineering
  • Cancer prevention and control

Key research

  • Development of decision aids for cancer screening and control and treatment planning
  • Development of immersive VR tools for patient preparedness and survivorship support
  • Digital health interventions to boost preventive cancer screening and smoking cessation uptake
  • Mixed-methods evaluation of patient-centered technologies

Potential applications

Healthcare

  • Personalized decision support, VR-based preparatory modules
  • Community‐driven digital outreach to underserved populations
  • Systems engineering approaches to streamline patient flow and safety and improve clinical operations

Education

  • AI‐enhanced learning tools for health professions training
  • VR-based simulations to improve mental health of Engineering students 
  • Human-centered design workshops to improve teaching technology adoption

Professional experience

  • Assistant Professor in Health Systems, Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, Binghamton University, Vestal, NY. August 2025 – Present
  • Project Director, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Columbia University. New York, NY. May 2023-August 2025.
  • Adjunct Professor, School of Systems and Enterprises, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ. December 2023 – August 2025.
  • Usability Research Associate. NYU Langone Health, Medical School, New York, NY. September 2022 – December 2023.
  • Device Development, Human Factors Co-op Intern, Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp, Rahway, NJ. May 2022 – November 2022.
  • Teaching and Research Assistant. School of Systems and Enterprises, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ. January 2020 – April 2023.
  • Researcher (Data Science in Healthcare and Product Design), Novartis & Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ. January 2021 – April 2022.
  • Project Manager and Re-engineering Consultant, OFTEX Internationalization S.L., Alicante, Spain. February 2019 – September 2019.

Significant achievements

  • The Outstanding Dissertation Award, School of Systems & Enterprises (May 2023)
  • The Paul Kaplan Award, Stevens Institute of Technology (May 2023)
  • Fabrycky-Blanchard Award, School of Systems and Enterprises (Apr 2022)
  • National Ergonomics Month 2021 Contest Winner, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (Nov 2021) 
  • Female Talent in Leadership and Management Skills Development Program, ECONOWIN/GIZ Germany (Jul 2017 – Present)