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Go Baby Go Car Adaptation Workshop

UW Go Baby Go, co-directed by CREATE Associate Director Heather Feldner, is excited to announce its fall workshop where we will build ten Go Baby Go cars for local children with disabilities and their families! UW and CREATE students, postdocs, and faculty (especially from engineering, computer science, and rehab programs), local clinicians, and parents/caregivers are all encouraged to attend. Saturday, November 6, 2021 * Workshop: 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. * Family car fittings and pickup: 2-4 p.m. UW Rehab Medicine, BB tower…

Help make the WSDOT website more accessible

Anthro-Tech is looking for people who use screen readers and other assistive technology to participate in a usability study on the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) website redesign. During a study session, the facilitator will show the participant the new website and ask them to use it to complete a few tasks. Sessions will take place on Zoom for 60-90 minutes and participants receive a $100 check as a thank you. Learn more and sign up at WSDOT Website Study: Call for participants.

Recruiting for Tactile Map Participants

UW researchers are seeking participants for a paid study. Who: People who are blind or low vision who use a screen reader and are 18 years or older.What: Participants will be asked to test 3D-printed tactile maps. Sessions are 60 minutes. For details, see the signup survey.Where: UW Seattle campus.When: August.Compensation: $40 and a travel stipend.How: Contact Kelly Mack at kmack3@cs.washington.edu or fill out the signup survey.

CREATE Community Day & Research Showcase 2021

CREATE Community Day 2021 was a rich program that included an important discussion of the concerns and approaches to just, sustainable accessibility research that puts the needs of community members with disabilities front and center.

CREATE members highlighted what their labs are doing, with time to hear about a variety of individual projects. Read on for a sample of the presentations.

$1M NIDILRR award for leadership training program

A team of CREATE faculty has received a five-year, $1M grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) for the project, “ARRT: Postdoctoral Training in Physical Computing and Fabrication to Support Innovations for Community Living and Participation.” Congratulations on the funding to the team members: Co-PI Jennifer Mankoff, Ph.D and Professor Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering Co-PI Anat Caspi, Ph.D. and Principal, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering…

Grad student Kelly Mack receives a Dennis Lang award

Kelly Mack, a Ph.D. student in Computer Science and mentored by CREATE Founding Co-Director Jen Mankoff, received a Dennis Lang Award from the UW Disabilities Studies program and the following praise: “Kelly is dedicated to improving accessibility for disabled students at UW through her research, service, and mentoring and allyship. Her thesis work will examine communication between DRS, students, and other stakeholders, and develop a prototype to allow tracking of DRS requests for improved accountability.” This award honors Dennis Lang,…

Jon Froehlich named Outstanding Faculty Member by the UW College of Engineering

Congrats to CREATE Associate Director Jon Froehlich on being selected for the Outstanding Faculty Award by the UW College of Engineering! As noted by the College, Froehlich went to extraordinary measures to support his students’ learning during the pandemic. He fundamentally transformed physical computing courses for virtual platforms, assembled and mailed hardware kits to students’ homes, and developed interactive hardware diagrams, tutorials and videos. In addition, Froehlich co-created and led a group of university educators to share best practices for…

Accessible CS Education workshop focuses on inclusive experiences

Amid a global pandemic, innovative thinkers have been hard at work developing plans to improve equity in modern learning environments. The Accessible Computer Science Education Fall Workshop was held November 17-19, 2020, and jointly sponsored by Microsoft, The Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities, and CREATE. Each day of the event focused on strategies to improve classroom experiences for students and faculty with disabilities. You can watch recorded sessions where speakers provided a wide range of perspectives on computer science pedagogy…

Data Science for Social Good summer program

Students and researchers are invited to apply to participate in a collaborative program with data science professionals and students to make better use of research data. The Data Science for Social Good summer program at the University of Washington eScience Institute brings together data scientists and domain researchers to work on focused, collaborative projects for societal benefit. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 program will be conducted remotely.  The program supports compelling, timely, publicly-relevant projects that are poised to take advantage…

Caspi to lead collaborative $11.45M Transportation Data Equity Initiative

Tools like Google Directions and OneBusAway give up-to-date travel and transit information to make regional transit easier for most. But mobility applications focus on efficiency and shortest paths, leaving out information critical to people with disabilities, older adults, and anybody needing more support. The Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, led by CREATE Associate Director for Translation Anat Caspi, and the UW’s Washington State Transportation Center will work with Microsoft, Google, the Washington Department of Transportation and other public and private…

Mankoff wins AccessComputing Capacity Building award

Congratulations to Jennifer Mankoff on receiving the AccessComputing Capacity Building Award! She was honored for her leadership in helping make all Special Interest Group on Computer–Human Interaction (SIGCHI) conferences accessible to attendees with disabilities.  Through her leadership, the SIGCHI Executive Committee now has adjunct chairs for accessibility, which institutionalizes accessibility as an important facet of SIGCHI activities. Jen holds monthly online meetings of the AccessSIGCHI leadership team to help set and execute its agenda.  Every year AccessComputing honors someone with the AccessComputing Capacity Building Award for…

UW Disability Equity Project Seeks Focus Group Participants

UW students, staff, and faculty who have a disability, physical or mental health condition, a chronic illness, or are d/Deaf are invited to contribute to a research project on disability, equity, and inclusion. A research team from the Disability Studies Program, The D Center, and the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine will conduct online focus groups where participants will be asked to share their experiences of ableism or discrimination as well as allyship and community in academic and healthcare situations. The…

Scholars who use screen readers sought for user study

The Semantic Scholar Research Team at the Allen Institute for AI is conducting an experiment to evaluate the screen reader accessibility of scientific papers. We are looking for participants who are age 18 or older, who identify as blind or low vision, and who have experience using screen readers to interact with scientific papers. The details: Complete the eligibility form to determine eligibility Study is all online (Zoom) Takes approximately 75 minutes Participants receive a $150 Amazon gift card Participation…

CREATE faculty and students awarded at ASSETS 2020

Congratulations to UW CREATE faculty on multiple awards at ASSETS 2020, the International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility! “The University of Washington has been a leader in accessible technology research, design, engineering, and evaluation for years. This latest round of awards from ACM ASSETS is further testament to the great work being done at the UW. Now, with the recent launch of CREATE, our award-winning faculty and students are brought together like never before, and we are already…