Category
Smith-Kettlewell Hosts International Symposium at CLADE Meeting
January 22nd, 2018
Jampolsky Fellows Reunion 2017
August 23rd, 2017
On Thursday, July 27, 2017, the 43rd annual reception for the opening of the Jampolsky Fellows Reunion was held at the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill, San Francisco. In attendance were 33 fellows, in addition to many spouses, hailing from Baltimore to Buenos Aires to Brazil to Basel to Birmingham. A truly eclectic group of pediatric strabismus ophthalmologists!
Relaunch of YouDescribe
May 22nd, 2017
On May 18, 2017, in honor of the sixth Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), Smith-Kettlewell relaunched the award- winning YouDescribe with new features, expanded capabilities, and exciting possibilities for the future of audio description. YouDescribe is a free web-based platform for adding audio description to YouTube videos to improve accessibility for the blind. Conceived in 2011 by Smith-Kettlewell scientist Dr. Joshua Miele in 2011, YouDescribe is a unique platform that allows sighted describers to add audio description to any YouTube video and share those descriptions with blind viewers.
Dr. Preeti Verghese Awarded NEI Grant
April 25th, 2017
Congratulations to Senior Scientist, Preeti Verghese, Ph.D., who was awarded a four-year grant from the National Eye Institute to study ways of assisting patients with age-related macular disease (AMD) in the performance of real-world tasks. Dr. Verghese’s research lab examines the neural processes, strategies, and adaptations that humans use to interact with objects in the real world and apply these to visual adaptations in clinical populations.
DescribeAthon 17 ‘Marathon’
March 10th, 2017
On January 26, 2017, in San Francisco, the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute’s Rehabilitation and Engineering Research Center (RERC) hosted DescribeAthon 17 — an event that used the Institute’s YouDescribe technology, developed by scientist Dr. Josh Miele, to raise awareness about video accessibility on the web for blind viewers. YouDescribe is an enhanced video program for YouTube in which recorded voices describe what cannot be seen.
SKERI Researchers Featured on Research! America Blog
February 8th, 2017
SKERI scientists Drs Preeti Verghese, Lori Lott, and Natela Shanidze were featured on the Research! America blog for AMD/Low Vision Awareness Month.
In Memoriam: Valerie Morash
January 27th, 2017
The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute mourns the tragic loss of one of its most outstanding scientists, Valerie Morash PhD. Val was an amazing researcher and a wonderful person who breathed not only scientific brilliance but empathy and good humor into everything she did. With degrees from MIT and UC Berkeley in engineering, statistics and psychology, her skills had extraordinary breadth as well as depth.
Senior Engineer Bill Gerrey Honored with a Named Room at New LightHouse Building
November 16th, 2016
San Francisco’s LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired recently moved to its new facility at 1155 Market Street, 10th Floor, San Francisco, California. One of the rooms at this new LightHouse is named “Bill Gerrey, WA6NPC Amateur Radio Station.” It is a state-of-the-art amateur radio station that is named in honor of Bill Gerrey, a blind engineer, who is a researcher and engineer at The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute. Bill Gerrey earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from California Polytechnic University.
Smith-Kettlewell Announces New Wayfinding App for Blind and Visually-Impaired Travelers
September 29th, 2016
Remote Infrared Signage (also known as “Talking Signs”) was invented at The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco. This powerful system used infrared beams to provide blind travelers with information about the location of transmitters marking bathrooms, bus stops, businesses, buildings, and beyond. Users could point hand-held receivers to accurately locate and identify the “signs” in that direction.