The Annual Longmore Lecture in Disability Studies presents Dr. Josh Miele:
"How Access Really Happens: Disability, Technology, and Design Thinking”
March 2, 2016
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtKf45Oc_8A]
Click here to read a guest post by Joshua Miele on our blog.
Josh Miele Bio:
Dr. Miele is a scientist with over 25 years of experience in developing innovative, information-accessibility solutions for blind people. He has a bachelors degree in physics and a Ph.D. in psychoacoustics from the University of California at Berkeley. As Director of the Description Research and Innovation Lab (DRIL), and Associate Director of the Smith-Kettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Blindness and Low Vision, he leads a team of engineers and scientists dedicated to addressing a wide variety of accessible information challenges in education, employment, and entertainment. His leadership of the DRIL (Formerly the Video Description Research and Development Center) energetically integrates accessibility engineering, education research, psychophysics, disability studies, and other disciplines, applying description technologies and techniques to a universe of information accessibility challenges.
Outside of his professional work at Smith-Kettlewell, Dr. Miele is an active member of the Bay Area’s vibrant disability community. He is a former board member of both the Bay area Outreach and Recreation Program (BORP), and the Ed Roberts Campus (ERC). He is the Immediate Past President of the board of the San Francisco LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and is cofounder and Creative Director of LightHouse Labs — a Bay Area think tank which promotes tightening ties between technology innovators and the blind community.
Dr. Miele is the inventor of the Descriptive Video Exchange (DVX), YouDescribe, WearaBraille, Tactile Maps Automated Production (TMAP), the Talking Tactile Pen (TTP), Sonification tools for MATLAB, Virtual Talking Signs, Simulated Sighted Stranger (SSS), and a number of other tools and diversions for blind consumers. He has also made contributions to screen reader technology, computer-vision applications for the blind, haptic exploration research, and disability humor. Dr. Miele lives in Berkeley, California, the City of the Blind.