News

SKERI Welcomes Local Students for a Day of STEM Inspiration

Students from Everett Middle School joined us for a day of learning what it is like to be a scientist.  The Field Trip was organized by IGNITE Worldwide!, a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring girls and non-binary students to consider careers in STEM.  The girls toured laboratories, met with scientists and worked on case studies.  The field trip was part of our ongoing activities to increase STEM participation.

Brandon Biggs brings his ideas for accessibility to SKERI

We’re excited to welcome Brandon Biggs to the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute. Brandon arrived in August to collaborate with Dr. Coughlan, Dr. Shen and Dr. Fusco to work on accessibility research and development. This collaboration started last year, when Brandon met Dr. Coughlan at the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER) International Conference in Reno, Nevada. Brandon was then enrolled in a Master’s program in Inclusive Design at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada, which he completed in June.

Jampolsky Fellows Reunion 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

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

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'

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.

Smith-Kettlewell Announces New Wayfinding App for Blind and Visually-Impaired Travelers

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.

Scientists Receive NEI Grant Aiding Blind Interaction with Physical Objects

James Coughlan, PhD, Senior Scientist at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, San Francisco, California, was recently awarded a four-year grant from NIH-NEI (R01EY025332) entitled, “Enabling Audio-Haptic Interaction with Physical Objects for the Visually Impaired Summary".