Huge congratulations to recently graduated Makeability Lab PhD student—now Michigan professor—Dhruv Jain on being recognized with the William Chan Dissertation Award. The Allen School has a lovely writeup, which quotes some of my thoughts worth repeating here. “Dhruv’s dissertation research makes fundamental advances in the design of sound sensing and feedback systems for people who are deaf or hard of hearing,” Froehlich said. “Throughout his dissertation work, Dhruv has worked closely with the DHH community to understand diverse needs and evaluate his systems, including through large online surveys, interviews and field deployments.” Jain’s own experiences as a DHH individual informed his research and helped shape his focus on the user experience.  “Dhruv’s dissertation not only exemplifies the human-centered design process in the creation of accessible technologies but also makes transformative technical innovations in integrating AI and HCI to improve information access,” Froehlich added. “As a testament to its impact, his work has received multiple paper awards and a Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant, and SoundWatch has been released and downloaded by over 2,000 Android watch users worldwide.” As rather surreal twist, I was honored with the same award a decade ago. It is both humbling and even more fulfilling to have one of my own students receive the award. Congrats Dhruv!

We were honored and delighted to give a talk on SciStarter in honor of MLK Jr.'s Day of Service. You can view the slides here. In the words of Dr. King: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere These words still resonate today as we continue to attempt to address systemic inequities in human mobility and transit access—for which Project Sidewalk is but one small movement forward. SciStarter is a platform for community science featuring over 1,000 research projects, including Project Sidewalk. If you join SciStarter, you can get credit for using Project Sidewalk—just make sure you're using the same email addresses on both platforms.

Huge news: Michael Duan was selected as a Finalist for the extremely competitive CRA Undergraduate Research Award based on his work on Scaling Crowd+AI Sidewalk Accessibility Assessments and Sidewalk Gallery. This is the first time in the Makeability Lab's history that one of our ugrads earned such a distinction. Congratulations Michael on this well-deserved recognition. The Allen School should be producing a story about this soon. See the full list of awardees here.

On Wed, Dec 7th, we had our Makeability Lab Holiday Potluck. It was so wonderful (and delicious) to share and consume the various foods—each which reflect part of who we are. Incredibly, it was my first time meeting a few students in person due to the pandemic! I'm also thankful that Mikey Saugstad and their sister could join as a special guest—all the way from SoCal—as well as a few MHCI+D students working in the Makeability Lab this year. Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday, Jon  

Congratulations to Dhruv Jain who was selected for the prestigious Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant for his work on “Sound Sensing and Feedback Techniques for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users.” The MSR Dissertationg Grant aims to "increase the pipeline of diverse talent receiving advanced degrees in computing-related fields by providing a research funding opportunity for doctoral students who are underrepresented in the field of computing."

Read more on the Allen School news page.

Congratulations to Dhruv Jain who was selected for the Google-CMD-IT LEAP Alliance Fellowship. CMD-IT stands for the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT and is dedicated to "promoting innovation that enriches, enhances, and enables our target communities, such that more equitable and sustainable contributions are possible by all communities."

Both of our ASSETS'19 papers were nominated for 'Best Paper' at ASSETS'19:

1. Weld, G., Jang, E., Li, A., Zeng, A., Heimerl, K., Froehlich, J. E. (2019). Deep Learning for Automatically Detecting Sidewalk Accessibility Problems Using Streetscape Imagery. Proceedings of ASSETS 2019.
2. Jain, D., Desjardins, A., Findlater, L., Froehlich, J. E. (2019). Autoethnography of a Hard of Hearing Traveler. Proceedings of ASSETS 2019.

We were honored that both of our papers submitted to ASSETS'19 were accepted for publication:

• Autoethnography of a Hard of Hearing Traveler led by UW CSE PhD student, Dhruv Jain, and co-authored by Jain, Audrey Desjardins (School of Art + Art History + Design), Leah Findlater (HCDE), and Jon Froehlich
• Deep Learning for Automatically Detecting Sidewalk Accessibility Problems Using Streetscape Imagery led by UW CSE PhD students, Galen Weld and Esther Jang, and co-authored by Weld, Jang, Anthony Li (UMD ugrad), Aileen Zeng (UW CSE ugrad), Kurtis Heimerl (UW CSE prof), and Jon Froehlich.