Charity Pitcher-Cooper
Scientific Program Coordinator
Degrees: Bachelor Science of Nursing, San Francisco State University
Trained Audio Describer: The American Council of the Blind and Audio Description Associates, LLC
Trained Audio Describer: The American Council of the Blind and Audio Description Associates, LLC
Pronouns: she/her
I joined The Smith-Kettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) team in 2017 as an assistant to scientist Dr. Joshua Miele. My 20 years of nursing experience in maternal and child health, as well as course work in early childhood education led to my interest in working with Dr. Arvind Chandna with SeeLab's cerebral visual impairment (CVI) research project. Currently I facilitate a research advocacy group of clinicians, parents, TVIs, and SKERI researchers related to cerebral visual impairment, CVI@SKI, and assist in administration of the Higher Vision Function Question Inventory (HVFQI). In addition to my work with CVI, I manage YouDescribe (a free tool for anyone to add audio description to YouTube videos). As a trained audio describer for YouDescribe, I have view and critique videos, support volunteer describers one on one with personalized tutorials, and teach group audio description classes for new volunteers looking to get started. I also support a new study currently in the development stage with Dr. Giovanni Fusco for tScratch, a Universal Design for Learning informed tactile interface for teaching Scratch, a beginning coding language.
Tabs
Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center
The Center's research goal is to develop and apply new scientific knowledge and practical, cost-effective devices to understand and address better the real-world problems of blind, visually impaired, and deaf-blind consumers. The RERC has many ongoing R...
Chandna Lab (SEELAB)
We use rigorous scientific research with the goal to improve detection and treatment outcomes for individuals with strabismus, amblyopia, and cerebral visual impairment.
Coughlan Lab
The 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.
YouDescribe
YouDescribe is a free, web-based platform for adding audio description to YouTube content.
t-Scratch: Tangible Programming Environment
tScratch: Tangible Programming Environment Targeted for Students who are Blind or Visually Impaired Introductory programming languages are overwhelmingly designed with sighted students in mind. Our goal is to expand and enhance scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/), a block-based visual programming...
Higher Visual Function (HVF) in individuals with cerebral visual impairment (CVI)
Cerebral visual impairment often affects higher level visual function (HVF); for example, spatial attention, motion perception, divided attention, etc. Such impairments sometimes are not easy to detect by a routine vision test. Nevertheless, parents may observe abnormalities in the daily living...
The Smith-Kettlewell Technical File
The Smith-Kettlewell Technical File, edited by William Gerrey (WA6NPC), was a publication by and for blind and visually-impaired electronics professionals and enthusiasts. It was published by the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute from Fall 1980, through Spring 1998 and was at various times...
Video Description Research and Development Center
The Smith-Kettlewell Video Description Research and Development Center (VDRDC) investigates innovative technologies and techniques for making online video more accessible to blind and visually-impaired students and consumers.
Contact Information
2318 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, California 94115
Room #
430
Email:
cpc@ski.org
Email:
cpc@ski.org
Office Phone:
(415) 345-2131