Ekaterina Mavrina, a fourth-year PhD candidate at the KIN Center for Digital Innovation, completed a research visit at the UCL Global Business School for Health. During her visit, she worked with Dr. Paola Zappa. Drawing on a social network theory, they explored how data scientists and experimentalists collaborate on dementia diagnosis research. They examined whether these groups approach the management of information sharing differently, and, as a result, may view the usefulness of the boundary-spanning information exchanges—when knowledge is shared across different disciplines—differently. Mavrina and Zappa dug into the literature on innovation activities to identify possible explanations for these anticipated differences.
Mavrina's PhD research, supervised by Prof. Dr. Ir. Hans Berends and Prof. Dr. Philipp Tuertscher, focuses on cross-boundary collaborations in biosciences in both academic and corporate settings. Specifically, she investigates how the interactions between decision-makers involved in R&D projects are shaped by data and machine learning.
Zappa’s research centers on organizational social networks, particularly examining network microfoundations and how new technologies and non-traditional work arrangements influence informal collaboration and knowledge sharing. She investigates these topics primarily in healthcare settings.