June 11, 2025 Congratulations to students and postdocs on a productive academic year! Join us in celebrating these career steps. Graduation Congratulations to CREATE member Anant Mittal, a newly minted Ph.D., for completing his program and successfully defending his thesis! During his program, Mittal, advised by James Fogarty, worked on the design and development of Jod, a videoconferencing platform to facilitate communication in mixed hearing groups. Mittal’s final thesis focused on designing, implementing, and examining systems for communication, collaboration, and…
Category: Newsfeed
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GAAD Day 2025 Interview with CREATE Director Jennifer Mankoff
Dr. Mankoff, a professor in the Information School and the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, will speak at the UW’s GAAD mid-day program on Thursday, May 15. What initially drew you to the intersection of computing, accessibility, and disability studies? I was a computer scientist first—and then I became disabled. That personal shift made me start thinking about how technology could better meet my needs. My first faculty position was at UC Berkeley, which was at…
James Fogarty inducted into SIGCHI Academy
May 13, 2025 A central figure in Seattle’s human-computer interaction (HCI) community and beyond, Fogarty has made key contributions in accessibility, sensor-based interactions, interactive machine learning, and personal health informatics. He has played a pivotal role in founding and growing Design, Use, Build (DUB) — the UW’s cross-campus HCI alliance bringing together faculty, students, researchers and industry partners. “I am honored to be among the SIGCHI Academy Class of 2025,” Fogarty said. “I’m grateful for the amazing students and collaborators…
GazePointAR makes sense of spoken questions through eye gaze, gestures and past conversations
May 31, 2024 “What’s over there?” “How do I solve this math problem?” If you try asking a voice assistant (VA) like Siri or Alexa such questions you won’t get much information. While VAs are transforming human-computer interaction, they can’t see what you’re looking at or where you’re pointing. CREATE Ph.D. student Jaewook Lee has led an evaluation of GazePointAR, a fully-functional, context-aware VA for wearable augmented reality (AR) that uses eye gaze, pointing gestures, and conversation history to make…
Taskar project helps pedestrians find accessible routes all over Washington state
April 9, 2025 AccessMap was created in the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology (TCAT), which is led by CREATE associate director Anat Caspi. When it was launched in 2017, data was limited to parts of Seattle. Over the years, it has expanded to other cities near the Salish Sea, including Everett, Mount Vernon and Bellingham. “Not only are we including all sidewalks in Washington, which is huge, but we are engaging communities and planners in a massive effort to support data production and…
Students: Apply for HuskyADAPT Leadership Positions
April 7, 2025 Being on the leadership team involves approximately 5 hours per week of commitment, though this may vary based on your role and upcoming events. The HuskyADAPT chairs are the student leaders who plan and facilitate all HuskyADAPT events, as demonstrated at the Spring Community Meeting. Don’t miss this opportunity to get more involved in CREATE and help HuskyADAPT continue its impactful work! Apply Now Why get involved? HuskyADAPT is a student organization, supported by CREATE, that collaborates with…
New Faculty Join CREATE in 2025
April 2, 2025 Cecilia Aragon, Professor, Human Centered Design & Engineering As a faculty member with a disability, combined with technical expertise and commitment to inclusive design, DR. Cecilia Aragon shares CREATE’s vision of a world where people with disabilities are full participants in shaping tomorrow’s world. Aragon is a professor in Human Centered Design & Engineering and an adjunct professor in three programs: Computer Science & Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Information School. She is also a Senior…
“Dude, what am I gonna do with a touchscreen? It’s crazy. I can’t feel anything.”
March 26, 2025 The iPhone 1 with a touchscreen — but no accessibility features for people who were blind — was released in September 2007. A few years later, Tim Paulding, who is blind, ran his fingers across the smooth glass screen of an iPod Touch for the first time. He was working as a counselor at a summer camp for blind kids outside Grand Rapids, Michigan, when a friend handed him the then top-of-the-line iPod. “I’m like, ‘Dude, what…
Kim Ingraham — engineering assistive robotic devices for people with disabilities
March 25, 2025 “Historically we have studied the way humans naturally move and then we have built robots that can mimic that movement,” says Ingraham, an assistant professor in the UW’s Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) department. “But when the human is wearing the robot and they’re both in the control loop at the same time, we have to figure out ways for those systems to successfully interact. Understanding and designing for the complexity of the interactions is one of…
Community Partner Spotlight: Disability Empowerment Center
March 24, 2025 DEC provides King County residents with free individualized services such as skills training for independent living, peer support groups, and resources and referrals to a network of partner agencies. You can support DEC in return: check out the DEC calendar, including webinars on understanding ableism. A CREATE Community Partner since 2022, DEC provides ongoing support for our grant efforts, shares valuable feedback through stakeholder and advisory committee participation, and is a strong community connection for CREATE’s students and…
Student Minigrant Story: Assistive-Feeding Robot Tested in the Real World
March 17, 2025 A team of UW researchers has been working on increasing the accuracy and the finer social aspects of an assistive-feeding robot. ADA, for Assistive Dexterous Arm, consists of a robotic arm that can be affixed to a power wheelchair or other sturdy furniture and controlled by the user. Through a web app, the user decides what bite they want. To feed the person that bite, the system uses a camera to distinguish between foods on the plate,…
CHI 2025: CREATE Papers and Presentations
March 24, 2025 Papers, presentations, and workshops from CREATE researchers at CHI 2025, the ACM CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. We appreciate your patience as we continue to update this page. The conference takes place April 26 – May 1 in Yokohama Japan. Awards and honors Congratulations to these 2025 ACM SIGCHI honorees: Papers A Stakeholder Value Framework for Augmentative and Alternative Communication Annuska Zolyomi (CREATE faculty), Varsha Koushik, Dinara Asyet, Linh H. Huynh. “A Tool for…
Coffee Chat Recaps – Winter 2025
March 4, 2025 Topics have included opportunities for student involvement in CREATE, how researchers can benefit from community-engaged research, and where to find funding for research. These meetings have proved useful for sharing ideas, experiences, and information. Future Coffee Chats UW students and faculty, make sure you’re subscribed to either the CREATE Students or CREATE Faculty internal mailing list. Also, subscribe to the CREATE event calendar. For accessibility info, contact Dr. Olivia Banner, CREATE’s Director of Strategy and Operations. Community-engaged…
Devva Kasnitz, Champion of Accessible Technologies
February 20, 2025 It would be difficult to understate Kasnitz’s indelible impact on the field of disability studies and accessibility, or breadth of her influence. Not confined to academic circles alone, she was deeply committed to social justice, always striving to bridge the gap between theory and activism. She worked tirelessly to ensure that disability studies didn’t just remain an intellectual exercise, but instead contributed to real-world change for people with disabilities. Her work helped to redefine what it meant…
Two Research Fellowships on Accessibility from UW Population Health
February 27, 2025 The UW’s Population Health Initiative announced two fellowships that may be of interest to CREATE graduate and undergraduate students. Accessibility of King County parks Graduate and undergraduate students from all UW schools and colleges are encouraged to apply for the Population Health Applied Research Fellowship on the accessibility of King County Parks. The Summer 2025 fellowship team will collaborate with the King County Demographer and King County Parks to assess park accessibility. This paid fellowship program offers training…
Funding and training opportunities – Winter 2025
January 21, 2025 We’ve rounded up some great opportunities for accessibility research, funding, and training. Most notably, deadlines are approaching for two CREATE grants: ACM CHI Workshop on Aging in Place call for participation The ACM CHI workshop on Technology Mediated Caregiving for Older Adults Aging in Place focuses on research around technological supports for caregiving, specific to older adults as they age and begin to experience cognitive changes. See also
Access Board’s Preliminary Findings on AI and People with Disabilities
January 21, 2025 The Access Board is an independent federal agency that promotes equality for people with disabilities (PWD), including the development of accessibility guidelines and standards. Created in 1973 to ensure access to federally funded facilities, the Access Board is now a leading source of information on accessible design. In 2023, a presidential executive order tasked the Access Board with examining the safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of AI. CREATE leadership and other experts consulted The Access…
Adapting toys to be accessible for local families
December 20, 2024 At HuskyADAPT‘s holiday toy adaptation event in November, about 80 volunteers adapted toys, ranging from a baseball pitching machine and spinning art kit to lava lamps, remote control cars and a bilingual play drum. The volunteers connected the toys to a switch that can make it easier for children with disabilities to interact with the object in a way that’s accessible to them, such as pressing a button, moving their head or blowing air. For example, a…
Former CREATE postdoc Sasha Portnova talks about her experiences and inspirations
November 22, 2024 Dr. Alexandra (Sasha) Portnova, a postdoctoral researcher with CREATE in 2022-24, was interviewed about those experiences as a NIDILRR-funded fellow and about her work in rehabilitation research. In the National Rehabilitation Information Center interview, Portnova spoke about the value of the CREATE ARRT fellowship in transitioning from the overwhelming life as a Ph.D. student into a faculty career. Currently, Portnova is a research scientist in the Neuromechanics & Mobility Lab, directed by CREATE associate director Katherine M….
Not just a wheelchair: Disability representation in AI
November 19, 2024 CREATE Ph.D. graduate Kelly Avery Mack led research that investigated how AI represented people with disabilities. Specifically, Mack’s team wanted to know if AI-produced images and image descriptions perpetuated bias or showed positive portrayals of disability. The team included four research scientists from Google Research: Rida Qadri, Remi Denton, new CREATE Advisory Board member Shaun K. Kane, and Cynthia L. Bennett, Ph.D., UW Human Centered Design and Engineering. Examples of positive disability representation in AI-generated images where…