One in 5 Americans has a disability, and the needs of people with disabilities are extremely heterogeneous. Yet accessibility is not a given, and assistive technology today is mostly homogenous and very expensive. Our group is focused on the scientific challenges that can address accessibility across a broad range of domains. A major focus of this work is creating general tools so that anyone can use tools such as 3D printing, knitting and other fabrication technologies.

President Obama once said ‘3D printing […] has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything” [Obama 2013].’ One might say that computers have the same ability. Together, computational advances and fabrication can revolutionize personal problem solving, particularly with respect to accessibility. 

Our group is embarking on an effort to enhance fabrication technology, both through the use of new and better materials and in its ease of program. Much of our effort here is on embedding standard programming capabilities such as testability, modularity, iterability, and version control into the design and fabrication process.

Sustainability, and relatedly environmental justice, are issues that intersects with all of the other focii in our group.  In addition, they are issues that require engagement by computer scientists. In the past, our group has tackled sustainability from an intersectional perspective, exploring how energy use plays out in a variety of communities from low-income settings in the U.S. to urban middle-class families in India. This in turn has led to new research in landlord-tenant relationships and ultimately to work aimed at changing the information economy prior to lease signing.