February 6th, 2026
On Friday, February 6th, students from Oakland High School’s Innovative Design and Engineering Academy visited Smith-Kettlewell. Students learned about different kinds of accessibility research directly from some of our scientists, giving them inspiration for their term projects.
The day started with a short greeting and introduction by Dr. James Coughlan, the director of SKERI’s RERC on Blindness and Low Vision. Next, he explained core concepts in blind accessibility, such as tactile graphicacy and multimodal interaction, described different projects under RERC, and explained how they could volunteer their time. Next, Dr. Santani Teng showed compelling videos of his research on information access through echolocation and braille. After a short break, Dr. Natela Shanidze introduced the vestibular system using short and simple activities like head and eye movement while fixating. She explained how impairments in these systems lead to limited mobility and increased risks. Dr. Andrew Freedman showed how to find blind spots and gave the students an intuition of vision under AMD and how it might be improved with contrast in a VR demo. Dr. Jade Guenot showed how depth perception changes with central vision loss and how it might be improved with VR-based training.
The event concluded with the students asking thoughtful questions. The organizing teacher, Saqib Hashim, hoped the Scientists at the Institute could provide feedback and judging for the accessibility oriented term projects the students will take on.
Labs
Coughlan LabThe goal of our laboratory is to develop and test assistive technology for blind and visually impaired persons that is enabled by computer vision and other sensor technologies.
Teng LabParticipate in our studies! Visit Teng Lab Experiment Participation for details. Welcome to the Cognition, Action, and Neural Dynamics Laboratory We aim to better understand how people perceive, interact with, and...
Eye-Head Movement LaboratoryOur laboratory is interested in how changes in visual and/or vestibular function affect eye/head coordination, balance, and mobility, particularly in aging. We are currently pursuing two main lines of research:...
Verghese LabOur laboratory studies the mechanisms of healthy vision and action, as well as the basis of attention and visual adaptation in clinical populations.
Centers
Rehabilitation Engineering Research CenterThe Center's research goal is to develop and apply new scientific knowledge and practical, cost-effective devices to better understand and address the real-world problems of blind, visually impaired, and deaf-blind...