Tenure Talk: Hernisa Kacorri

Description:

The disability community has long fought for economic security, equal opportunity, and inclusion. Information and technology play a vital role in these efforts, and our college has a strong tradition of working with communities to break down barriers and create new possibilities. In the era of data and AI, we are uniquely positioned to make a significant impact on accessibility, the focus of my research. In this talk, I will present a series of completed and ongoing research projects where we study, design, and develop systems that leverage mass data, focus on specific community data, or are personalized with an individual’s data. I will demonstrate how these efforts are interconnected with other emerging sociotechnical topics, both contributing to and being influenced by their success.

About the Speaker:

Hernisa Kacorri is an Associate Professor in the College of Information, with a joint appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and an affiliate position in the Department of Computer Science. She is a principal investigator at Trace RERC and a member of HCIL, MIDA, VCAI, and TRAILS. Her research focuses on supporting the disability community by addressing barriers that can be overcome through data-driven technology and ensuring equal access to future technologies. Within the emerging discipline of Human-Centered AI, her work bridges the fields of Human-Computer Interaction, AI, and Accessibility. Her research, funded by the NSF and NIDILRR, has received honorable mention and best paper awards at conferences such as ACM ASSETS, ACM CHI, IEEE WACV, and IEEE VL/HCC. Before joining UMD, she earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from The Graduate Center at the City University of New York and conducted research at the University of Athens, IBM Research-Tokyo, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Additional Information:

Please contact infoevents@umd.edu at least one week prior to the event to request disability accommodations. In all situations, a good faith effort (up until the time of the event) will be made to provide accommodations.