Joshua Miele
American research scientist specializing in accessible technology design / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joshua A. Miele (born 1969) is an American research scientist who specializes in accessible technology design. Miele conducted research on tactile graphics and auditory displays at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in California for fifteen years. In 2019, he joined Amazon Lab126, a subsidiary of Amazon that works on hardware products, where he is Principal Accessibility Researcher. He has been blind since early childhood.
Joshua Miele | |
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Born | 1969 (age 54–55) New York, U.S. |
Education | University of California, Berkeley |
Awards | MacArthur Fellowship (2021) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Accessibility |
Institutions |
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Thesis | Human auditory perception of trajectories of motion in a simulated open-field environment (2003) |
Doctoral advisor | Ervin Hafter |
Miele's work at Smith-Kettlewell includes Tactile Map Automated Production (TMAP), a web application for generating tactile maps of streets printable with a braille embosser, and YouDescribe, a web platform for creating and listening to audio descriptions of YouTube videos. In 2014, he worked with the San Francisco-based nonprofit LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired to start using TMAP to produce tactile maps of the Bay Area Rapid Transit for teachers and other consumers. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2021.