About
I was a “computer geek” before the term was coined but I knew, early on, that I wanted broad career experience. As one of the first women doctorates in Computer science, I subsequently worked in research and management in software engineering and technology transfer at Duke U., NASA, NSF, ISI Information Sciences Institute, Wang Institute, MCC, and Embry-Riddly u. That’s experience in government, industry, and academia with stints in self-employment, parenting, unemployment, and now semi-retirement and social entrepreneurship. Apparently, on my wish list for life opportunities, I forgot to uncheck the box on Disability because I’m also now legally blind from myopic retinal degeneration.
So, I’ve closed my loop and am now back to exercising my love for programming. While I’m still an amateur at interaction design and accessibility engineering, I’ve been developing a style of user interface I’ve dubbed “Easy Viewing”, as implemented in a podcatcher called @Podder distributed at http://www.apodder.org. I caught the podcast listening bug in late 2004 and have used podcasts and RSS to replace news, magazines, technical pubs, and TV. My favorite career project was an empirical study of “Do Search Engines Suppress Controversy?” with a specialized search engine that reaches into the Analytic Web.
This blog is my outlet for experiences before and during transition from crappy vision into partial sight. I try to be blunt about my life as a Vision Loser with my main goal to provide options and explore issues regarding technology. that assist the newly partially sighted, as opposed to the totally blind. I’ve been especially impressed that podcasts are a great way to learn about how experienced visually disabled people live and the rehab and support services I will need for navigating the hazy space between the fully sighted and the fully blind.
I hope other macular degenerates, pathological myopes, and any type of Vision Loser will come with me on this journey and share their experiences in the forum.
Susan L. Gerhart
Prescott Arizona
July 2007
slger123@gmail.com
Over here is a more traditional biography .
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