Accessibility-Related UW Courses

CREATE's Newest Ph.D Graduates

June 9, 2023

We're proud to see these talented, passionate students receive their Ph.D.s and excited to see how they continue their work in accessibility.

Alyssa Spomer, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering

Dissertation: Evaluating multimodal biofeedback to target and improve motor control in cerebral palsy

Advisor: Kat Steele

Honors, awards and articles:

• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and TL1 Fellowship
• Husky 100 in 2020
• Mechanical Engineering feature article Supporting Mobility in Cerebral Palsy
• HuskyADAPT Student Chair

Current: Clinical Scientist at Gillette Children's Hospital, leading research in the Gillette Rehabilitation Department to improve healthcare outcomes for children with complex movement conditions.

Elijah Kuska, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering

Dissertation: In Silico Techniques to Improve Understanding of Gait in Cerebral Palsy

Advisor: Kat Steele

Honors, awards and articles:

• TL1 Fellowship
• Mechanical Engineering article Making an impact through research and teaching

Plans: Elija will start as an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Mines in the Mechanical Engineering Department in January 2024.

Megan Ebers, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering

Dissertation: Machine learning for dynamical models of human movement

Advisors: Kat Steele and Nathan Kutz

Awards, honors and articles:

• Dual Ph.D.s in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Math
• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Plans: Megan will join the UW AI Institute as a postdoc in Spring of 2023 to pursue clinical translation of her methods to evaluate digital biomarkers to support health and function from wearable data. 

Nicole Zaino, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering

Dissertation: Walking and rolling: Evaluating technology to support multimodal mobility for individuals with disabilities

Advisors: Kat Steele and Heather Feldner

Awards, honors and articles: 

• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, 2018 - Present
• Gatzert Child Welfare Fellowship, University of Washington, 2022
• Best Paper Award at the European Society of Movement Analysis for Adults and Children, 2019.
• Finalist, International Society of Biomechanics David Winter Young Investigator Award, 2019

Plans: Nicole is headed to Bozeman Montana to join the Crosscut Elite Training team to work toward joining the national paralympic nordic ski team for Milano-Cortina 2026, while working part-time with academia and industry partners. 

Ricky Zhang

Dissertation: Pedestrian Path Network Mapping and Assessment with Scalable Machine Learning Approaches

Advisors: Anat Caspi and Linda Shapiro

Plans: Ricky will be a postdoc in Bill Howe’s lab at the University of Washington.

Kat Steele, who has been busy advising four out of five of these new PH.D.s, noted, "We have an amazing crew of graduate students continuing and expanding upon much of this work. We're excited for new collaborations and translating these methods into the clinic and community."

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Rethinking Disability and Advancing Access

UW CREATE collaborates toward a world with fewer problems and more solutions for people of all abilities.

The UW College of Engineering showcased CREATE’s mission, moonshots, and collaborative successes in a feature article, Rethinking disability and advancing access, written by Alice Skipton. The article is reproduced and reformatted here.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in four people in the United States lives with a disability.

“The presence of disability is everywhere. But how disability has been constructed, as an individual problem that needs to be fixed, leads to exclusion and discrimination.”

Heather Feldner, UW Medicine assistant professor in Rehabilitation Medicine and a CREATE associate director

The construct also ignores the reality that people's physical and mental abilities continually change. Examples include pregnancy, childbirth, illness, injuries, accidents and aging. Additionally, assuming that people all move, think or communicate in a certain way fails to recognize diverse bodies and minds. By ignoring this reality, technology and access solutions have traditionally been limited and limiting.

UW CREATE, a practical, applied research center, exists to counter this problem by making technology accessible and the world accessible through technology. Launched in early 2020 with support from Microsoft, the Center connects research to industry and the community.

On campus, it brings together accessibility experts and work-in-progress from across engineering, medicine, disability studies, computer science, information science and more, with the model always open to new collaborators. 

“Anyone interested in working in the area of accessible technology is invited to become part of CREATE,” says Jacob O. Wobbrock, a professor in the UW Information School and one of the founders and co-director of the Center.

Shooting for the moon

“We have an amazing critical mass at UW of faculty doing accessibility research,” says Jennifer Mankoff, a professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and another founder and co-director of CREATE. “There's also a lot of cross-talk with Microsoft, other technology leaders, and local and national community groups. CREATE wants to ensure people joining the workforce know about accessibility and technology and that the work they do while they are at UW directly and positively impacts the disability community.” The Center’s community and corporate partnerships approach increases creativity and real-world impact.

The concept of moonshots — technology breakthroughs resulting from advances in space exploration — offers a captivating way of thinking about the potential of CREATE's research. The Center currently has four research moonshots for addressing technological accessibility problems. One focuses on how accessibility impacts young children's development, identity and agency and includes a mobility and learning study with the UW Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) that employs the only powered mobility device available in the U.S. market specifically designed for children one to three years old. Another looks more broadly at mobility indoors and outdoors, such as sidewalk and transit accessibility. A third seeks ways to make mobile and wearable devices more accessible along with the apps people use every day to access such essentials as banking, gaming, transportation and more. A fourth works toward addressing access, equity and inclusion for multiply marginalized people.

"CREATE wants to ensure people joining the workforce know about accessibility and technology and that the work they do while they are at UW directly and positively impacts the disability community.”

— Jennifer Mankoff, founder and co-director of CREATE

For CREATE, advancing these moonshots isn't just about areas where technologies already exist, like improving an interface to meet more people's needs. It’s about asking questions and pushing research to address larger issues and inequities. “In certain spaces, disabled people are overrepresented, like in the unhoused or prison populations, or in health-care settings,” Mankoff says. “In others, they are underrepresented, such as in higher education, or simply overlooked. For example, disabled people are more likely to die in disaster situations because disaster response plans often don’t include them. We need to ask how technology contributes to these problems and how it can be part of the solution.”

Broader problem-solving abilities

Nicole Zaino, a mechanical engineering Ph.D. student participating in CREATE's early childhood mobility technology research, describes the immense benefits of having her education situated in the context of CREATE. “It's broadened my research and made me a better engineer,” she says. She talks about the critical importance of end-user expertise, like the families participating in the mobility and learning study. Doing collaborative research and taking classes in other disciplines gives her more insights into intersecting issues. That knowledge and new vocabulary inform her work because she can search out research from different fields she otherwise wouldn't have known about.

More equity advocates

At the same time, Zaino’s lived experience with her disability also broadens her perspective and enhances her research. She became interested in her current field when testing out new leg braces and seeing other assistive technology on the shelves at the clinic. For Mankoff, it was the reverse. She worked in the field and then experienced disability when diagnosed with Lyme disease, something she's incorporated into her research. Wobbrock got a front-row seat to mobility and accessibility challenges when he severely herniated his L5-S1 disc and couldn't sit down for two years. For Feldner, although she studied disability academically as a physical therapist and in disability studies, first-hand experiences came later in her career when she became a disability advocate for one of her children and a parent. At CREATE, more than 50% of those involved have some lived experience with disability. This strengthens the Center by bringing a diversity of perspectives and first-hand knowledge about how assumptions often get in the way of progress. 

Seeking to push progress further on campus, CREATE has an initiative on research at the intersection of race, disability and technology with the Allen School, the Simpson Center for the Humanities, the Population Health Initiative, the Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity, the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship, and the Office of the ADA Coordinator. 

CDC statistics show that the number of people experiencing a disability is higher when examined through the lens of race and ethnicity. With events and an open call for proposals, the initiative seeks increased research and institutional action in higher education, health care, artificial intelligence, biased institutions and more. 

“If we anticipate that people don't conform to certain ability assumptions, we can think ahead,” says Wobbrock. “What would that mean for a particular technology design? It’s a longstanding tenant of accessibility research that better access for some people results in better access for all people.”

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Teach Access Study Away program

There is a wonderful, free short course, Teach Access Study Away, run by the Teach Access organization each year. 

The 2023 Teach Access Virtual Study Away is a two-part series. Part 1 focuses on the basics of accessibility and disability; Part 2 covers more advanced topics so completion of Part 1 or a previous Study Access Away session is required.

The two parts combined total 7 virtual sessions, each 1 1/2 hours on Wednesdays starting on April 5th.  Signup for 2023 closes on March 25th.

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CSE course sequence designed with "accessibility from the start"

The CSE 121, 122, and 123 introductory course sequence lets students choose their entry point into computer science and engineering studies, whatever their background, experience, or confidence level. And, as part of the effort to improve diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA), the courses were designed with "accessibility from the start."

A member of the course development team was a dedicated accessibility expert, tasked with developing guidelines for producing accessible materials: using HTML tags correctly, providing alt text for all images, and ensuring accurate captions on all videos. The team audited both content and platforms -- including the course website -- for accessibility concerns.

In CSE's DEIA Newsletter article, author Brett Wortzman, Associate Teaching Faculty, points out that "many of the guidelines followed are good universal design, helping all students, not just those with disabilities, and at the same time reducing the work for instructors needing to comply with many DRS [Disability Resources for Students] accommodations."

Excerpted from article by Brett Wortzman, Associate Teaching Faculty, in CSE's DEIA Newsletter.

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Carl James Dunlap Memorial Scholarship

University of Washington student Carl James Dunlap had a powerful impact on the UW community with his vibrant personality and persistent advocacy for students with disabilities. To honor his legacy, the Dunlap family established the Carl James Dunlap Memorial Endowment. The Dunlap Memorial Endowment seeks to support students with disabilities encountering unique challenges when attending and completing higher education. The D Center is grateful to further Carl’s legacy by awarding two $2,000 Carl James Dunlap Memorial Scholarships to UW students for Winter 2023.

The Dunlap Memorial Scholarship selection criteria is a UW student who identifies as having a disability and is currently receiving financial aid.

Apply no later than January 31

If you have any questions, please contact the D Center at dcenter@uw.edu.

The Carl James Dunlap Memorial Fund is accepting donations to further help students with disabilities.

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