
Teaching
I teach curricula on accessibility design, informed by my work at the NYU Ability Project and IAAP CPACC certification. I’ve taught in industry and academia at places such as New York University, A11y NYC, Hunter College, and the Maryland School for the Blind.

Curricula
Tactile Still Life Drawing
5.17.2022 – 6.11.2022
Andrew Heiskell Braille
& Talking Book Library
Twitter NYC
In this hands-on nonvisual drawing workshop, we arranged still life scenes using 3D touch objects. We explored tactile drawing techniques, such as continuous line and negative space, using Sensational Blackboards, ball point pens, and computer paper.


Nonvisual Soldering Workshop
2.28.2020 – 3.1.2020
NYU ITP
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. We developed recommendations for future workshops: provide tactile and textual instruction and standardize materials.

Nonvisual Arduino
Workshop
12.19.2019
Andrew Heiskell Braille
& Talking Book Library
Wanting to learn how to support teaching electronics to Blind and Low Vision learners, 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 research to design accessible materials to teach electronics.

Museum Accessibility Design Course
1.30.2020 – 5.7.2020
New York University
Co-taught 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.
Intro to Tactile Design
08.22.2019 – 1.29.2020
A11y NYC
frog
NYC Media Lab Summit 2019
NYU DesignLab
Hunter College
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.



DIY Tactile Design
04.29.2020 – 08.16.2020
NYU Ability Project
NYU IDM
NYU ITP
Andrew Heiskell Braille
& Talking Book Library
Maryland School for the Blind
We covered inclusive design basics and applied them to a tactile graphics use case. No longer having access to NYU’s microcapsule fuser, we 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.

Intro to Accessibility
September, 2019
NYU ITP
- The difference between Inclusive Design and Accessibility
- Models of disability
- Laws and standards
- Who is responsible for accessibility?
- Universal Design principles
- Co-design and human-centered design
- Intro to screen readers
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and Web Accessibility Principles (P.O.U.R.)
- How to apply WCAG 2.1
- How to write effective alt text
- Audio description, captions, and transcripts
Talks
Council for Museum Anthropology Virtual Symposium
March 25 – 26, 2022
We shared our research developing new approaches to safely providing accessible content to visitors, as traditional solutions were being phased out during Covid-19. We defined the properties of a high-quality touch object and outlined the best practices for their safe handling, ensuring access for visitors who learn best through their sense of touch.
PastForward 2021
November 2 – 5, 2021
Shared our work developing accessible and multi-sensory visitor experiences at museums and historic sites across the U.S. at PastForward 2021. We discussed how auditory, tactile, and smell experiences can remove barriers to information access.
MCN 2020
November 10 – 19, 2022
For MCN 2021, we described our efforts to better understand the challenges and opportunities for sustaining and expanding tactile objects in museums through conducting interviews with 15 museum access specialists from museums ranging in size and location. We discussed the responses from six accessibility experts who identified as blind or low vision to the museums current practices.
Carnegie Mellon HCI Institute
October 5, 2020
I spoke on a panel of Blind Arduino Project soldering practitioners about community collaboration for making and research. We shared how building rapport within Blind making and academic research was critical to offering non-visual skill-building opportunities to community partners.