AccessComputing News - November 2023: All Articles

AccessComputing is lucky to have a wonderful community of partners and team members interested in disability and accessibility.  In the past year, many of our community members have been recognized by their institutions or other organizations.

• AccessComputing partner Chris Murphy (Swarthmore College) received the Bryn Mawr College Rosalyn R. Schwartz Teaching Award.

• AccessComputing team member Emma McDonnell (UW) received a Dennis Lang Award from the UW Disability Studies program. The award recognizes UW students who demonstrate promise in the field of disability studies.

• AccessComputing team member Brianna Wimer (Notre Dame) received a 2023 Google PhD Fellowship for her research related to data visualizations for blind and low vision individuals.

• AccessComputing partner Chris Murphy and AccessComputing team member Kelly Avery Mack (UW) received DO-IT Trailblazer Awards. The DO‑IT Trailblazer award highlights DO‑IT community members who forge new pathways that will benefit others. 

• In July 2023, AccessComputing Partner Code the Spectrum was awarded the IRP Grant of $44,838 by Irvine City Council to support the program “IT Job Training Services for Adults with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities.”

• AccessComputing partner Stephanie Ludi (University of North Texas) was featured in the column “People of ACM.” She is currently serving as Co-Chair of ACM’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council.

Photos by Scott Hamilton and Lacey Johnson; photo originally used in RIT article.

Several AccessComputing Team Members completed their Ph.Ds this in 2023. Congratulations to each of them on this important milestone in their careers! Our first three new Ph.Ds set a major milestone: Abraham Glasser, Noella Kolash and Matthew Seita are the first three deaf Ph.Ds to graduate from RIT. 

• Abraham Glasser received his Ph.D in Computing and Information Studies. His dissertation, “Empirical Investigations and Dataset Collection for American Sign Language-Aware Personal Assistants.” Voice-controlled personal assistants are increasingly ubiquitous, and pose urgent accessibility challenges and barriers for DHH users. Dr. Glasser’s dissertation consisted of parallel research efforts investigating issues surrounding this technology, and provides a basis for future design and development of personal assistants that would be able to understand ASL input. Dr. Glasser started at Gallaudet University as an Assistant Professor this academic term.

• Noella Kolash received her Ph.D in Computing and Information Studies. Her research interests focus on accessible and educational technology and human computer interaction for Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Currently, she works on improving accessibility for people who are deaf through the selection of culturally understandable icons. Dr. Kolash works as a Junior Full Stack Engineer with the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at RIT.

• Matthew Seita received his Ph.D in Computer Science His research interests lie in accessibility and human-computer interaction and how Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) can help deaf, hard of hearing and hearing people communicate better by designing ASR technology that will alert speakers that the software can’t pick them up clearly, which results in errors which lead to deaf people misunderstanding the communication exchange. Currently, Dr. Seita is doing a postdoc with Dr. Raja Kushalnagar at Gallaudet University. 

Several other AccessComputing team members either completed their Ph.Ds this year or will complete them before the new year:

• Aisha Urooj received her Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida. Her dissertation, “Visual Question Answering: Exploring Trade-offs Between Task Accuracy and Explainability” explores the process of answering questions about complex situations in videos; the process requires capturing the underlying semantics of actors, objects, and their relationships and their evolution over time (actions). Dr. Urooj examined methods of embedding learning action and relationship in video to solve the video question-answering task. The learned embeddings have the information of implicit graph structure for actions and relationships which significantly benefits in answering complex reasoning-based questions about the video. Dr. Urooj is currently a postdoctoral research fellow in AI at the Mayo Clinic.

• Brittany Lewis received her Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Rhode Island. Her dissertation, “Designing Accessible Computing Device Authentication For People With Upper Extremity Impairments” examines how computing device authentication makes assumptions about the user's ability to perform complex tasks with their arms, hands, and fingers. As a result, entering complex passwords, or accurately positioning a camera for facial recognition can create barriers for people with upper extremity impairment. Dr. Lewis said that the goal of her work “was to explore and design more accessible ways for people with UEI to log in to their computing devices.”

• Jennifer Adorno will graduate in December with a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of South Florida. Jennifer’s dissertation, “Refining The Machine Learning Pipeline For US-Based Public Transit Systems” focused on improving methods and tools for handling real-time data in public transit research with the goal of decreasing the barrier of entry for data-driven approaches. The research crossed several branches of computer science such as big data, data science, and human-computer interaction. Jennifer is currently searching for a postdoc position focused on accessibility research targeting blind or visually impaired individuals.

• Tee Chuanromanee received their Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Notre Dame. Their thesis is titled "Designing the Trans Experience: Technology and Common Gender Transition Narratives." Dr. Chuanromanee’s dissertation studies the role of technology in gender transition, in particular, the roles of access, storytelling, and decision-making in gender transition. They currently work as a Human Factors Engineer at Southwest AIrlines in Dallas, TX, and continue part-time as a Research Assistant at the University of Michigan School of Information.

The Computing Research Association's Distributed Research Experience for Undergraduates (DREU) is a program that supports summer research experiences for undergraduate students from groups that are underrepresented in the computing field, which includes students with disabilities. AccessComputing has been partnering with this program for years to pair up team members with a variety of computing labs and faculty mentors.

During my time at DREU, I was involved in three projects: Building a mobile math application, a machine learning suicide prevention project, and ADHD research in the workplace. From the math-app project, I learned value skills in mobile development, and I feel comfortable developing my own mobile app. Additionally, the machine learning team just published a paper on the research we did, and I was listed as an author on that paper. This is a first for me so I am very excited to have something to show people.

The best part of my experience was the remote aspect. Since I was a remote worker, I was able to do my work while studying abroad in Oxford. I wrote code and completed research in England, Italy, and France. I would like to have a remote job out of college and travel Europe, so this was a taste of that lifestyle. I cannot thank DREU enough for the amazing experience, and I recommend this program to anyone interested!

Fourteen AccessComputing team members kicked off the start of this academic year by receiving full or partial funding to attend the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference in Dallas in mid-September. Several AccessComputing team members shared their thoughts, including Alicia Tsai, (PhD, UC Berkeley) shared her impression:

Tapia is a unique place where people gather to share stories and to help the community grow. I particularly enjoyed the sessions where we discussed challenges faced by underrepresented groups. People found allies and the connections that later became their mentors, colleagues, or life-long friends. It has also pushed me to reflect on my work and how I can better serve the community while not burning myself out. It is truly a unique conference that inspires you to think brotherly about computing.

Nikhil Ghosh (Bachelor’s, University of Connecticut) also shared some thoughts to let us know that he had a great experience at Tapia:

I attended talks, participated in workshops and meetings, and networked at the career fair. Throughout all, I got to meet wonderful people and started to appreciate Tapia as a community. Everyone I got to know was interested in celebrating diversity and supporting each other - that came through on an overall level, and it has stayed with me since. I’ve made connections with so many supportive individuals, I’ve grouped with others around shared professional interests, and I’ve grown as an individual. The conference was a lot of fun, but the impact I’ve experienced leaves me deeply grateful.

Finally, AccessComputing team member Jason Allen (Bachelor’s, Oregon State University) shared a really thoughtful essay on the value of his Tapia experience, given the fact that he’s both a non-traditional undergraduate and in a fully-remote program, where making connections can be challenging:

The Tapia Conference is a rare gem when it comes to conferences. This event brings together people from diverse backgrounds, experiences, and identities. This conference is where you will meet all the people you hear about who are under-represented, overlooked, or undervalued, or just “outsiders'' for one reason or another in the tech field. We all gathered for a few days and were deeply encouraged by each other’s stories and learned that there is indeed a place for someone like us, in the tech field. I left believing that our differences are valued and we are encouraged to express them to help promote diversity and cohesion in the industry. 

I am a non-traditional student studying for a B.S. in Computer Science. For instance, I changed careers after the onset of a major disability. So, I’m an older student and I must admit that I felt a bit out of place at the conference for the first few hours. I looked all around me and saw young undergraduate students who were looking for their first job ever. I admired their ability to pick up and move across the country for a job if necessary. I wondered if I would ever actually be considered for an internship due to my age. 

Then, I went to my first session, where I learned about big data use in business. There, I met the presenter and afterwards had lunch with her and a group of other students. It was during this first lunch on the first day that I suddenly realized that everybody at my table had a non-traditional story. We connected because of our differences. I felt more connected to them than anybody else I know in the tech field.

For the remainder of the conference, I spent my time trying to make valuable connections with people and learn more about their story and what inspired them to join the tech industry. I was not networking for a job. Rather, I simply wanted to meet people and find genuine connections. If a job came of this, then that would be great, but that was not my goal. 

As a result, I learned so much more about myself than I have through years of therapy. I learned that my non-traditional background and age are truly advantages to my candidacy. They are not liabilities. I walked away from the conference empowered and believing that I am a unique candidate with a well-rounded experience and understanding of how to relate business needs to tech needs.

Most of all, I walked away from the conference with some acquaintances and new friends. My school program is fully remote, so I do not have the ability to network and meet other students on campus. I love talking to people in person, so it is difficult to be removed from campus. I have been studying courses online for three years and though I tried to stay in touch with people it was quite difficult. 

Now, I have friends that I can reach out to when I just need to talk about computer science. There are so many ups and downs that come with entering into the tech field with a disability and now, I finally know people and organizations that can support me on this journey. 

Go to the Tapia conference. It is the place where “outsiders” can see that they are actually “insiders.” You just have to change your perspective and that can change how you approach your career and even your outlook in life.

AccessComputing contributed to ensuring that computing-oriented courses were addressed in a spring issue of the Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability (JPED) for which I was a guest editor. This special issue features articles about how disability-related topics can be included in the curriculum of academic courses and professional development offered by postsecondary institutions. It is hoped that the inclusion of such content in educational offerings will increase the number of practitioners, educators, and researchers who understand how to design products and environments that are accessible to and inclusive of people with disabilities. 

The vast majority of practices reported in papers submitted for this issue employed universal design (UD) approaches to the creation of physical environments, to teaching and learning activities, and/or to technologies. Ronald Mace—a wheelchair user who was also an internationally recognized architect, commercial product designer, and educator—coined the term "universal design" to refer to the design of products, environments, and services so that they are accessible to, usable by and inclusive of all people, regardless of age, ability, and other characteristics. Any UD practice (e.g., to a website, to instruction, to a physical space) is designed to be accessible, usable, and inclusive. A curbcut is an example of how a universal design feature has been widely accepted as a best practice in sidewalk design.

JPED is published by the Association of Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD). AHEAD has allowed me to distribute free copies of the issue to our community. Email a request to doit@uw.edu to receive a copy of the special issue in an accessible PDF Microsoft or Word format.

I have some medical diagnoses that are often considered disabilities. However, they are mostly invisible, and I have a lot of compensating strategies that help keep them that way—to the point where well-meaning acquaintances and even once a medical professional have said things like “oh, you can’t have ADHD, you got good grades in high school.” The strategies that let me “pass” have costs in time and energy, but most of the time the results are good enough to get by.

I find the discussions of some disability community groups valuable—I’ve gotten lots of really great strategies from strangers on the internet—but I am never sure whether I should claim to be “disabled,” given that I am mostly not perceived that way. Being part of a community of people who share similar challenges is valuable to me, and I love the idea of being able to share back into the community my own strategies in case they will help others. On the other hand, I don’t want to somehow take away from the experience of people who are more affected by their conditions—and I’m afraid of being judged by people as a hypochondriac or attention-seeking for claiming that my conditions qualify as a disability. And, beyond the interactions with others, accepting that my conditions are (at least sometimes) life-affectingly disabling can be a hard thing to hear in my own mind and come to terms with.

So, how do you know if you’re ready to/willing to/deserve to claim a disability identity?

Thanks, Disability Imposter Syndrome

Dear Disability Imposter Syndrome,

I initially started answering this question with a little review of disability history, the legal definitions of disability, and some of the possibilities that are opened by thinking about disability from a social model perspective. But partway through writing I realized what I really want to tell you is what my disability identity means to me. On the one hand, I could tell you that I am unambiguously, visibly, medically-certifiedly Disabled with a capital “D”: I need to use a wheelchair, one of the most frequently-used symbols for disability; I have a parking placard; I’ve had to read the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act; I can tell you which local sidewalks are passable (not many) and which local businesses have ramps (almost none). All of those things certainly affect my disability experience, both for better (diagnosis is a privilege) and worse (my disability discloses itself whether I like it or not), but they have little to do with my disability identity.

If I have to commit to a definition, I would say for me being disabled means living with a non-normative body or mind, in tension with my surroundings and other people’s default assumptions and expectations. It also means being part of the disability community, which at its best disrupts those normative expectations and makes space for many more ways of existing in the world: We remember people’s dietary restrictions and look for ramps. We hang back for the slow walkers and wait for the slow talkers. We remember that not everyone even walks or talks at all. We volunteer to teach the conference organizers about accessibility, and then volunteer to do it again when it didn’t stick the first time. We give each other grace and space when our bodies and minds demand a break and cover for each other when we can. We work to come up with creative solutions to conflicting needs rather than immediately giving up. We resist any of us being made into symbols of tragedy or inspiration, or dehumanized problems to be solved by medicine or engineering. We do our best to meet each other’s access needs, and when we fail, we try to do better the next time.

At the end of the day, I can’t decide for you if you’re ready or willing to claim a disability identity. Disability is both a stigmatized identity and implies a level of permanence that I think can be difficult for a lot of people who are on the fence in the way you describe being. That said, I hope I can give you permission to take it a little easier on yourself. Most importantly, a disability identity doesn’t have to be constant or eternal: you could identify yourself as disabled at certain times and in certain spaces and not in others, or you could identify as disabled now but not in a year (or vice versa). It’s also okay to for your identity to take more than one word to describe; you could say “I have a disability, but enough coping mechanisms that it doesn’t affect me much day-to-day” or you could say “I have an occasionally-disabling condition, but I don’t really identify as disabled” or you could say “I don’t think of myself as disabled but I have a lot in common with the _____ community” or you could say “I consider myself disabled under the social model of disability but not under the medical model”. I hope you'll also let go of the idea that you have to be "disabled enough" to "deserve" a disability identity. That kind of thinking isn't uncommon, but it's influenced by the legal and medical frameworks where there are thresholds that have to be met in order to qualify for treatment or accommodation. Most disability-centered spaces (including AccessComputing!) take a much more relaxed approach: as long as you have a non-normative body or mind that affects the way you move through the world, you belong, and there's no burden of proof other than self-identifying as disabled.

If after all that, you decide that identifying as disabled feels right to you, welcome to the club! And in either case, I hope you'll embody some of those disability community values all the same; accessibility benefits more than just those of us with disabilities, and I would be pleased to see it become more the norm across all of society.