Perspectives in Assistive Technology is a Winter Quarter Stanford course - entering its seventeenth year - that explores the design, development, and use of assistive technology that benefits people with disabilities and older adults. It consists of semi-weekly in-person discussions; lectures by notable professionals, clinicians, and assistive technology users; a field trip to an accessible inclusive playground; an Assistive Technology Faire; and student project presentations and demonstrations. Course website.

Student Enrollment - Enrollment is now closed with 40 students - of which 34 are working on Team Projects, 2 on Individual Projects, and 4 just attending lectures.

Guest Lecturer Schedule - The schedule of guest lecturers has been finalized. For more information about each presenter and their topic, browse to the course lecture schedule webpage. Community members are welcome to attend class sessions on campus starting with the first one next week on Tuesday, January 10th. Maps and direcrions. Masking may be required. There will not be a concurrent Zoom broadcast.

Tuesday, January 31st at 4:30pm PST

Abstract: "In this talk, I will share my personal experience as a user with cochlear implants, and discuss the history and future of this device's development. Introducing historian of science and technology Mara Mills' term "bionic rhetoric," I will explain how the cochlear implant negotiates two different strains of thinking in assistive technology design: normalization and enhancement. My talk will conclude with a discussion of how this rhetoric gets metabolized in literary and popular discourse, and how these narratives illuminate how people with disabilities use - and even hack - their assistive technologies."

Biosketch: Lindsey Dolich Felt is a lecturer in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University. She received her PhD in English from Stanford University in 2016, and holds a BA from Haverford College. Before coming to Stanford, she worked as a journalist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com.

Her research interests include contemporary American literature, media culture, science fiction, science and technology studies, and disability studies. She is currently researching how disabled bodies crucially shaped conceptions of electronic communication in the post-WWII era, and has written articles on female hackers in Cyberpunk fiction, and the little known history of the first cybernetic limb and its influence on communication engineering in the early Cold War era.

Her course, "Unruly Bodies: Gesturing Toward a New Rhetorics of Body Language" explores how advances in science, technology, medicine, and culture have transformed our understanding of disability, normalcy, and health.

Thursday, February 2nd at 4:30pm PST

Abstract: "I plan to use real world examples and counterexamples to illustrate basic - but-critical - do's and don’ts of the accessibility design process."

Biosketch: Joshua A. Miele received BA (1992) and PhD (2003) degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. From 2007 to 2019, he worked at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute as a principal investigator and as the associate director of research and development. Josh also served as the president of the board of directors for San Francisco’s LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired (2011–2015). Currently, he is an accessibility researcher at Amazon Lab126, where he has contributed to projects such as Braille compatibility with Fire tablets and a “Show and Tell” feature on camera-enabled Echo devices that can identify pantry and food items. Josh's goal is to create effective and affordable solutions to everyday problems blind people face, particularly access to digital information. He received a MacArthur Foundation Fellow Award in 2021.

• Tuesday, February 7th- Issues of Human Interface Design
• Thursday, February 9th - Assistive Robotics

You are invited to participate in the Assistive Technology Faire - This eleventh annual course event is scheduled for Tuesday, February 28th and will provide an opportunity for students and community members to get an up-close look at a variety of assistive technology devices and learn about available services. Users of assistive technology products as well as small companies and agencies serving individuals with disabilities and older adults are encouraged to join in on this event. Browse to the Call for Assistive Technology Faire Participants webpage for more information and contact me to register as a vendor.

Eleven vendors have committed to participate this coming year. Here is the line up and slides from last year's virtual Faire.