Jenna Gorlewicz
Saint Louis University, MO·Engineering
Charts, maps, diagrams and other graphics carry much of the information in classrooms and workplaces. People who are blind or have low vision cannot see them, and they often cannot move through unfamiliar places as independently as they would like.
- Fields
Engineering
Computer Science
Education Research
- Topics
assistive technology
accessibility
blindness and low vision
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Nov 2027
What they work on
- Build the core content platform for Inclusio, a system that takes graphics in many data formats and outputs them to web and mobile apps, braille and tactile embossers, multimodal touchpads, and refreshable tactile displays.
- Develop AI and automation that reduce the time needed to turn the most requested graphics into accessible formats, paired with an authoring suite that lets people review and refine the results according to accessibility standards.
- Refine Inclusio through rapid, repeated user testing with more than 200 blind and low-vision individuals, teachers of students with visual impairments, and content providers, leading to a public launch.
- Identify what students with visual impairments, their families and teachers need from an orientation and mobility (safe-travel skills) learning tool, using surveys, interviews and co-design workshops.
- Create wireframes, interaction workflows and an early concept prototype of a web-based, AI-supported tool that uses touch and sound cues to support spatial reasoning, informed by assistive-technology partners.
More about the research
Today, making a graphic usable by touch or sound usually requires a sighted person to build a special version by hand. Learning to travel safely depends on limited one-on-one instruction. Both gaps hold back education, employment and independence. Both of the lab's projects build software, guided by input from users, that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and "multimodal" cues (information delivered through touch and sound as well as sight). The first lets blind and low-vision people get visual content on their own. The second helps students build spatial and navigation skills.
Why it matters
Blind and low-vision students and adults often depend on sighted helpers to access graphics. Many also get too little practice with safe independent travel, and both problems are tied to lower educational attainment, employment and independence. Tools that automatically convert graphics into braille, tactile or audio formats could save teachers and content providers time. AI-supported orientation and mobility practice could help students with visual impairments gain confidence and independence at home, in school and in their communities.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
NSF Convergence Accelerator Track H: Addressing the Fragmented Information Access Problem - A Community-Driven, AI-Powered Platform for Multimodal Content Creation
NSF · Dec 2023 – Nov 2027
NSF FF: Planning: Building Pathways to Independence and Workforce Readiness Through Accessible Orientation and Mobility Learning
NSF · Jul 2026 – Nov 2026
Closest labs
Hae-Na Lee
Michigan State University, MI·Computer Science
Develop detection algorithms that analyze webpage layouts, interaction workflows, user actions, and accessible navigation paths to identify deceptive design patterns, including ones created by mismatches between a page's visual structure and its screen reader reading order.
Nicholas A Giudice
University of Maine, ME·Computer Science
Develop user-centered design guidelines that specify which information and sensory pairings, such as speech, sound or touch, best support the most common navigation tasks across a whole trip for blind and visually impaired travelers.
Xiaojun Bi
Stony Brook University, NY·Computer Science
Create a non-visual free-form gesture input method that lets blind users enter whole words or phrases by tracing continuous gestures on the standard Qwerty touchscreen keyboard, removing the need to confirm each letter.
The school
Saint Louis University: 5 labs on PI Pages, $96M a year on research, 251 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.