Teaching

At the end of a conference table, an attendee focuses and holds their soldering iron, while Lauren Race observes.

Teaching

I teach curricula on accessibility design in industry and academia, informed by my work at the NYU Ability Project and IAAP certification. I’ve taught at places such as New York University, Hunter College, and the Maryland School for the Blind.

A room full of attendees to NYCML sit around tables, while myself is standing in front of the room holding up microcapsule paper and explaining what it is.

Graduate Courses

Multisensory Design

10.20.2022 – Present
Expanded to 14 weeks, coming Fall 2023
NYU ITP

Georgina Kleege holds a white cane on her left shoulder and pets a multisensory white cat pillow that purrs and smells like cat shampoo, while 3 students observe.
Georgina Kleege and Fayen d’Evie petting Purrlow, a cat-sized, rectangular fur pillow with a tail that purrs and smells like cat shampoo

Developed and taught a brand new curriculum where we took a multisensory approach to design, making interfaces more accessible to disabled users. Students learned how to design for the senses (think tactile controls combined with atmospheric sounds and olfactory or taste experiences), while they gained an understanding of the assumptions we make about our users’ sensory preferences.

→ Go to Multisensory Design Class Website

Museum Accessibility

1.30.2020 – 5.7.2020
New York University

TA’ed a course with Dr. Amy Hurst and Dr. Anita Perr, led reading discussion sessions, assisted with homework assignments and grading, and mentored final project for team that addressed accessibility of artifacts behind glass.

→ Go to Museum Accessibility Class Website

Speaking

2023

No Such Thing Podcast with Marc Lesser
A New Toolkit For Multisensory Museum Learning
Podcast Guest

A11yBay Meetup: Bay Area Accessibility and Inclusive Design
Creating Tactile Graphics with Technology
Presenter

HASTAC: Critical Making & Social Justice
The Nonvisual Arts: A Workshop Exploring Tactile Design for Accessibility
Conference Presenter & Facilitator

axe-con
Maker/Space: a DIY, Accessible Workflow for Tactile Graphics Used in Zero-Gravity Flight
Conference Presenter

Andrew Heiskell Braille & Talking Book Library
Tactile Art Teach-in
Lecturer & Facilitator

Design Week 2023: Future of Connections
Problems and Possibilities Panel
Panelist

New York University (ITP)
Accessible STEM Tools
Guest Lecturer

2022

Council for Museum Anthropology Virtual Symposium
Designing, Producing, and Preserving Accessible Touch Objects for Museums
Conference Presenter

Eyebeam: Digital Day Camp
Accessible Smart Cities and the Digital Twin
Guest Lecturer

Hunter College
Accessible Education Tools
Guest Lecturer

2021

IMLS Summit
Bring Your Own (Accessible) Device
Conference Presenter

PastForward
Boosting Sensory Interpretation at Historic Sites
Conference Presenter

2020

Museum Computer Network (MCN)
Touch and Multi-sensory Experiences: Developing Safe and Inclusive Practices During Covid-19
Conference Presenter

Carnegie Mellon HCI Institute
HCII Access Seminar: Soldering
Panelist

Sketching in Hardware
Nonvisual Making
Conference Presenter

CSUN Assistive Technology Conference
Dimensions: Building & Growing an Open Tactile Graphics Lab [Cancelled due to Covid]
Conference Co-presenter

Workshops

Nonvisual Drawing

5.17.2022 – Present
Andrew Heiskell Braille
& Talking Book Library

Twitter NYC

Close up of a 12 by 14 inch scale model of a black penny farthing bicycle with a triangular wooden seat, resting upright on a table. Positioned in front are two tactile drawings: one continuous line of the bike in the exact same position (plus a bonus rendering of a tiny Empire State Building) and one of a negative space drawing with the wheel spoke negative space depicted, resembling the shape of a whole pizza with gaps between the slices.
Two workshop drawings, Andrew Heiskell Braille & Talking Book Library

In this hands-on nonvisual drawing workshop, we arranged still life scenes and figures using 3D touch objects and wooden mannequins. We explored tactile drawing techniques, such as continuous line and negative space, using Sensational Blackboards, ball point pens, and computer paper.

Myself at the head of a long conference table of employees with slides behind my head on high fidelity tactile graphics. An assortment of touch objects are laid across the table.
Reviewing types of tactile media, Twitter NYC

Nonvisual Soldering

2.28.2020 – 3.1.2020
NYU ITP

A long conference table, full of attendees, is set up with individual soldering stations with soldering irons, fans, vices, and soldering mats. In the foreground one attendee guides another's hand across their circuit board held by a vice at their soldering station.

Seeking to learn how we can design curricula to increase access to learning soldering non-visually, we designed and evaluated a nonvisual soldering curriculum with a three-day workshop led by the founder of the Blind Arduino Project, Dr. Joshua Miele.

→ Go to Soldering Workshop Details

Nonvisual Arduino

12.19.2019
Andrew Heiskell Braille
& Talking Book Library

Overhead view of a tactile component diagram of a piezo. On the far left is a small, black piezo buzzer glued to the page. Next to it is an enlarged tactile graphic of a piezo with the anode and cathode labeled. On the far right is an industry symbol of a piezo: a semicircle with two parallel pins extruding from the rounded edge of the semicircle.

We taught a nonvisual Arduino workshop which revealed the complexities of designing textual descriptions and tactile graphics for Blind Arduino workflows. The findings led to design recommendations for future accessible electronics learning materials. 

→ Go to Arduino Workshop Details

Intro to Tactile Design

08.22.2019 – 8.16.2020
A11y NYC
frog
Hunter College
Andrew Heiskell Braille
& Talking Book Library
Maryland School for the Blind
NYC Media Lab Summit 2019
NYU DesignLab
NYU IDM
NYU ITP

Lauren Race standing in front of a microphone to the left of a projected slide about when to make tactile graphics that reads: "Tactile Graphics. Object unavailable (the stars), object too small (insect), object too large (tree), difficult to explain (rainbow), cannot be touched. (snowflakes), size relationship needs describing (an elephant and a man). Source, Tactile Graphics by Polly Edman"
Describing the best scenarios for making tactile graphics at A11y NYC

Promoted inclusive design and accessibility awareness by framing tactile design as a useful collaborative tool and use case, provided hands-on experience by inviting attendees to design and produce their own tactile designs using microcapsule paper and a fuser.

Over the shoulder long shot of myself at frog design. Everyone has their heads down sketching their tactile graphics, while a slide on a monitor shows some tips in the background.
Using Sharpies to add carbon to microcapsule paper at frog
Close up of the hands of a group of people gathered around a table, touching a tactile graphic.
Attendees touching example microcapsule tactile graphics at NYC Media Lab Summit 2019
Zoom screenshot of students, faces and names blurred out, holding up their DIY tactile graphics they made with found materials at home.

No longer having access to NYU’s microcapsule fuser during Covid lockdown, I covered alternative tactile graphic design techniques using found materials to create Do It Yourself tactiles at home. We pressed pencils into paper on top of cutting boards to create reverse tactile graphics and scissors, glue, found objects, and hot glue to create raised collages.