The College of Health, in partnership with the College of Arts and Sciences’ Interdisciplinary Programs, and the Health, Medicine, & Society Program, is pleased to organize a colloquium series focused on disability independence during Fall 2023 and Spring 2024. This monthly series will feature activists and scholars across disciplines who advance the wellbeing and agency of people with disabilities. The disability independence series celebrates the College of Health strategic research cluster of the same name as well as the CAS interdisciplinary approach to social problems. These Zoom presentations are open to the public and will be published on our colloquium series YouTube website. The colloquium is sponsored by Good Shepherd Rehabilitation.

Our first colloquium of the semester, in partnership with College of Arts and Sciences’ Interdisciplinary Programs, Institute for Health Policy & Politics and Good Shepherd Rehabilitation, "How can we advance Disability Justice in mobility and transportation?" will be presented by Dr.Anat Caspi. 
Dr. Anat Caspi will address the Board, shedding light on groundbreaking efforts at the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology in creating a comprehensive transportation equity program, highlighting three key elements: 1) Community-Based Participatory Design: the Taskar Center champions a community-co-design strategy, emphasizing inclusivity across diverse groups such as DeafBlind travelers and multi-generational families; 2) Transportation Data Equity: A critical component of the Taskar Center’s work involves a focus on data equity in transportation. This includes the development of OpenSidewalks, an open pedestrian data standard, and an ecosystem of tools to ensure consistent and standardized data collection processes and consuming trip planners, like AccessMap; 3) Capacity Building Tools: equipping transportation agencies and Departments of Transportation (DOTs) with the knowledge and conversation tools is also necessary to create and understanding of Disability Justice and address holistic access needs.  Dr. Caspi will speak about her experience working with the USDOT ITS4US program, OpenSidewalks data collections in six U.S. counties, and will also highlight a recent milestone achieved by collaborating with WA state advocacy organizations leading to a proviso passed by the WA State Legislature, paving the way for OpenSidewalks data collection across all public rights of way in the entire state over the next two bienniums. 

Anat Caspi is Director of The Taskar Center for Accessible Technology (TCAT), an initiative housed by the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science at University of Washington.

Dr. Caspi’s primary research areas are in the fields of Contextually Aware Automation. Her research focuses on engineering machine intelligent solutions for customizable real-time, responsive technologies in the context of work, play and urban street environments. She has designed, developed, and evaluated sensor and mobile applications for personalized navigation and routing in pedestrian ways, and improving personal automated mobility devices.  Caspi is interested in exploring different ways in which collaborative commons and cooperation can challenge and transform the current economics of assistive technology and incentivize rapid development and deployment of ethically built accessible technologies.

Dr. Caspi’s Specializations include Applied Machine Learning, Statistical Models, Sensor Characterization, Computer Vision, Participatory Design, Mixed Evaluation Methods.

Past colloquia may be viewed here: https://health.lehigh.edu/news-events/colloquium-series.