Technical systems for research and professional programs

I design and implement websites, operational software, and data workflows with research teams, healthcare and professional associations, and community-data initiatives.

The people I work with bring knowledge of their field, participants, members, communities, and institutional setting. I lead requirements and UX discovery by learning how people currently work, where friction appears, and what existing systems can support. I turn that understanding into a technical structure I can carry through design, implementation, testing, and support.

Selected work

The work below spans membership and program infrastructure, participant-facing research communication, and applied research-data systems in different institutional settings.

Association of Med-Peds Physicians

As AMPP expanded its national physician network, I led requirements and UX discovery with leadership and physicians at several career stages. I turned that work into a shared member architecture and connected systems for registration, professional validation, directories, mentorship, events, communications, and paid membership. The latest project record lists 1,084 members, approximately 400 automatically validated records, and four staff users.

“Our team understands the specialized skills required for this work and cannot imagine partnering with anyone else.”

Allen Friedland, President, AMPP
Read how I designed a shared foundation for AMPP’s expanding programs
AMPP public homepage and public mentor directory in an overlapping-screen composition.
AMPP public homepage and searchable mentor directory.

All Children Thrive - California

ACT coalitions brought local knowledge and defined their own priorities, questions, and policy goals. Within UCLA’s data technical-assistance program, I identified how scattered resources were slowing that work, then proposed, built, and tested a central ArcGIS Hub for a program serving 14 coalitions. I designed its information architecture, maps, analytical applications, and interpretation guides around the way a question develops.

Read how I designed and tested a Hub around locally defined questions
ACT Data Hub homepage and interpretation guide in an overlapping-screen composition.
ACT Data Hub homepage and a guide combining interpretation with an interactive map.

Practice

Although the visible products vary, the work across these projects draws on publishing, operational, and analytical capabilities. Publishing work organizes structured information for staff to maintain and audiences to use. Operational work connects identities, records, permissions, user actions, and staff decisions. Analytical work prepares source data for comparison, interpretation, and communication.

These capabilities use a shared technical foundation. Source information is defined as records and relationships. Rules determine how it is validated, transformed, reviewed, and published. Interfaces give public users, members or participants, staff, and analysts the information and actions appropriate to their role. Requirements and UX discovery establish which sources are authoritative, where access boundaries sit, how exceptions are handled, and what should remain in an existing platform.

An engagement can begin with an assessment and implementation plan or with a defined build. I carry the work through information architecture, design, development, testing, and deployment. The defined scope can also include integrations, accessibility, documentation, training, hosting, maintenance, and continued development.

About

I am Christopher Nagel, an independent technical consultant working across web development, information architecture, operational software, research-data systems, and applied GIS. I work directly with project leads and staff through requirements, design, implementation, testing, and support. Documentation and training are included where the project calls for them. I work with research programs and professional associations across the United States.

Contact

An introductory call can begin with the current situation; a formal brief or proposed solution is not required. Helpful context includes who the work serves, what already exists, and what has become difficult.

Email Christopher to arrange an introductory call chris@christophernagel.com