Yalini Senathirajah, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Medical Informatics at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, in New York City. Her interests include clinical and public health informatics, including development of a highly user-configurable 'web 2.0' electronic health record platform, doctor-patient communication, health disparities, interface design, the use of web technologies and mobile computing for medicine and health promotion (particularly in underserved populations), and the effects of technology on social networks and health. Other interests include global health, free/open source software, digital privacy issues as related to health and civil society.

She has studied at the University of Guelph and the Ontario Veterinary College and holds an AB in Biology from Harvard University. Later, while working at MIT, she discovered her interest in computing and eventually become the webmaster of the Columbia University Health Sciences campus, where she created and managed a large consumer-oriented health website and numerous other applications in support of research, education and patient care. She obtained her PhD in biomedical informatics from Columbia University.