Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute

2/2 or eyes, than when they passively listen to text read aloud. Braille supports deeper comprehension, not just access.

🔗 doi.org/10.1097/OPX....

#Braille #Accessibility #Blind #LowVision #VisionScience

1/2 As #BrailleLiteracyMonth wraps up, we’re highlighting research from Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute showing why braille literacy still matters.

Our researchers found that both blind and sighted readers understand text better when they actively read,using hands

Two smiling adult women stand indoors at the Truhlsen-Marmor Museum of the Eye, each holding a Girl Scout science badge. Museum signage is visible behind them, and both appear to be participating in a science outreach event.

Close-up of a colorful embroidered Girl Scout badge held between fingers, featuring a stylized brain at the center with icons representing science, DNA, and learning in purple, pink, green, and blue tones.

Our women scientists loved chatting with an insightful group of 4th & 5th grade Girl Scouts about what it really takes to be a scientist hosted at the Truhlsen-Marmor Museum of the Eye.

Future scientists in the making 💜

#WomenInScience #GirlsInSTEM #STEMOutreach #FutureScientists

Starting the year off with some publications! In a fun collaboration with @kate-agathos.bsky.social, @tobyellmers.bsky.social and Will Young, we looked at changes in gait-specific attention in individuals with maculopathy. authors.elsevier.com/c/1mPew3RoQ8...

A group of about 30 people stands together inside a warmly lit restaurant, smiling at the camera in a casual group photo.

The institute’s CEO stands and speaks to a seated group during a holiday lunch inside a bright restaurant. Colleagues listen attentively at tables

Happy Holidays from all of us at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute! ✨

We’re grateful for the people and partnerships that make our work meaningful.

Thank you to everyone who supports and believes in this work.

Photos from our Holiday Lunch celebrating the season together.

Christopher Tyler | Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research

2/2 fMRI brain-mapping, his work has transformed how we understand seeing, thinking, and creating.
A truly extraordinary legacy. 👏
If you'd like to Know about Dr. Tyler's work, you can find more information here: www.ski.org/directory/ch...

1/2✨ 50 Years at Smith-Kettlewell ✨
Today we celebrate a scientist whose five decades at Smith-Kettlewell have helped shape modern vision science. From inventing the autostereogram to advancing binocular vision, sweep VEP, and

Donate to The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute Help support The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute by donating or sharing with your friends.

2/2 that support independence for people who are blind or partially sighted.
Your support helps our research move from the lab into everyday life.

Give today and help us continue building a more accessible, inclusive future.
#GivingTuesday
www.paypal.com/donate/?host...

1/1 💙This Giving Tuesday, we’re celebrating the real-world impact our supporters make possible.

At the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, our mission is to advance understanding of human vision, improve diagnosis and treatment of visual disorders, and create innovative technologies

Five panelists sit in a row on stage in front of a large screen displaying the GAADy Awards logo in bright green lettering. The panel includes three women and two men, all seated on white chairs and holding microphones. Live captions appear on the right side of the screen.

A presenter stands at a podium on the left side of a stage, speaking in front of a large projected slide titled “XR Navigation Presents: Audiom: The first digital map and spatial diagram everyone can use.” Several empty chairs are arranged onstage. Live captions appear on the right side of the screen.

A large room filled with seated attendees facing a stage. On stage, several people stand near a podium and large projection screen. The screen displays a video call with multiple participants, including a man smiling in a large video window. One person on stage is handing something to another, while others take photos. A blue Vista Center banner stands to the left of the stage.

2/2 Across platforms, audio, visuals, text, screens, headphones, or braille displays.It can sit alongside existing visual maps or completely replace inaccessible ones.
#Accessibility #Audiom #GAADyAwards #PitchAbility2025 #InclusiveTech #SKERI

1/1 🌟 Big news from Smith-Kettlewell! 🌟

One of our researchers, Brandon Biggs, just won a GAADy Award and was named a 2025 PitchAbility Winner for Audiom, the first cross-sensory digital map that lets blind users navigate using both sound and sight.

Audiom makes maps accessible

Thrilled to have SKERI scientists in San Diego this week for the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, presenting their newest discoveries! 🧠✨
#SfN #Neuroscience #SKERI #SanDiego

William Good | Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research

💜 World Prematurity Day

Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) is a serious vision risk for premature infants. At SKERI, Dr. William Good is advancing research to improve early detection and long-term outcomes for these vulnerable newborns.

www.ski.org/directory/wi...

Donate to The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute Help support The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute by donating or sharing with your friends.

🌍 Today is World Philanthropy Day!
For over six decades, SKERI has advanced research that expands accessibility & independence for people who are blind or have low vision.

If you believe in science that makes a real-world impact, consider supporting our work: www.paypal.com/donate/?host...

A second fellowship position at SKERI, funded for 2 years and open to all applicants, is now available! See below for details about us and the application process 👇🏼
#postdoc #neurojobs

How To Apply | Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Individuals interested in applying to the Postdoctoral Fellowship program must send a CV to a potential Mentor to begin the […]

Prospective fellows must be a U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident; have a Ph.D., O.D., or M.D.; and start before March 31, 2026. A second fellowship slot open to all applicants will be announced soon. Visit here for more details on the application process: www.ski.org/how-apply/

What Does a Fellowship at Smith-Kettlewell Offer? | Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Smith-Kettlewell is a uniquely attractive place to receive postdoctoral training in vision research and related fields. Our program offers the […]

We are completely devoted to basic and translational research and offer a unique environment for postdoctoral fellows interested in a research career with the option to apply for the Principal Investigator (PI) track. For more on our fellowship program, visit here: www.ski.org/what-does-fe...

Collage of 4 photos: Scientists performing an eye tracking experiment, a participant in an EEG cap being prepared for an experiment, postdoctoral fellows posing with the Peanuts gang at Oracle Park, SKERI scientists smiling for the camera.

🚨Postdoc fellowship alert! Applications due Dec. 10🚨
Interested in vision science, accessibility, eye movements, brain plasticity, mobility or related fields? A 1-year #NIH T32-funded opening, extensible contingent on funding, has become available in SKERI’s #postdoc #fellowship program. #neurojobs

A speaker at a podium presents a slide titled “Why are tactile maps and 3D models important?” to an audience seated at tables. The slide includes images of tactile graphics and raised maps.

A presenter stands beside a slide with The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute logo and images of tactile navigation tools developed in collaboration with RACIT.

Three smiling presenters stand side by side in front of beige curtains, representing collaborators from Smith-Kettlewell and RACIT.

A speaker in a white shirt presents from a podium using a microphone during the tactile accessibility event.

Our event, Scaling Up Accessible Tactile Maps & 3D Models, showcased how visual & spatial data can be transformed into touchable formats.

Huge thanks to Mykhailo Boiko from Rivne Applied College of Information Technology, who traveled from Rivne, Ukraine, for this international collaboration.

Flyer for the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute’s participation in the Bay Area Science Festival. The top and bottom borders feature autumn leaves, pumpkins, and acorns. The Smith-Kettlewell logo, an eye with text reading “The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute,” appears near the top. Speech bubbles say “For 100+ hands-on experiences for free” and “Find our booth for exciting demos. QR code has more information.” Below, the Bay Area Science Festival logo is displayed with colorful overlapping figures. A person wearing 3D glasses holds a geometric patterned object. Text reads: “11 AM – 4 PM, 25 October, 2025. Pub Lounge Booth 4, Mission Bay Conference Center, 1675 Owens St, San Francisco, CA 94158.”

Join us at the Bay Area Science Festival for hands-on demos exploring neuroscience, vision, and blindness. 🧠👁️

All the event details are in the flyer below.
We hope to see you there!

#BayAreaScienceFestival #SmithKettlewell #ScienceForAll #Neuroscience

🎉Congrats to USF psychology students Ariana Zhao & Jade Fakuade for receiving the $1,000 Changemakers stipend in recognition of their research internships in Dr. Santani Teng's Cognition, Action, and Neural Dynamics Laboratory at Smith-Kettlewell.

#USFCA #SmithKettlewell #Changemakers

🔬Two innovative accessibility studies are close to full funding!

Help push them past the finish line:
experiment.com/projects/brain-dynamics-in-braille-reading-letters-to-language

experiment.com/projects/how-can-ultrasonic-wearables-be-most-useful-for-humans

#Neuroscience #SupportScience

🚨 Help my lab at @skeriresearch.bsky.social advance innovative research on the technology, perception, and neuroscience of accessibility! The Teng Lab has launched a pair of campaigns through @experiment.com.
🧠 experiment.com/braille
🦇 experiment.com/robinecho

An excellent way to mark #FallsPrevention week with work from SKERI scientists @kate-agathos.bsky.social, @vestivisilab.bsky.social, and Dr. Don Fletcher

Importance of screening for contrast sensitivity, falls, and mobility limitations in older adults with maculopathy Falls are a major and growing concern as they are the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths worldwide1 and the mortality rate of falls in individuals over 65 is increasing.2 Falls among ...

Excited for our study on the importance of mobility screening and referral in AMD to be finally published! www.ajo.com/article/S000.... In it @kate-agathos.bsky.social, Dr. Don Fletcher, and I show that over half of patients screened had balance/mobility concerns.

Flyer for the 15th International Conference on Low Vision Research and Rehabilitation. The top section has a light blue background with centered dark blue text: “The 15th International Conference on Low Vision Research and Rehabilitation, Florence (Italy), 8–12 September 2025.” The bottom half shows a close-up of a blue eye with a globe overlay in place of the pupil — continents in white on a dark blue iris. A diagonal line cuts across the eye: the left side is gray, darkened, and pixelated, while the right side appears in full color and sharp detail.

🌍 Proud to share SKERI’s expertise at #VISION2025Florence, the 15th International Conference on Low Vision Research & Rehabilitation.

Today: James Coughlan, Brandon Biggs & Jade Guenot presented. Tomorrow: Preeti Verghese, Jade Guenot & Don Fletcher take the stage!
#LowVision #Accessibility

🚨 Very excited to have this manuscript with Haydée García-Lázaro out in the world! With psychophysics and #EEG decoding, we show how echoacoustic evidence accumulates over multiple click-echo presentations. The first temporally resolved account of the brain doing #echolocation in blind humans. 🦇🔊

We are proud to celebrate our very own Dr. Joshua Miele - a brilliant scientist, inventor, and advocate whose work continues to expand equal access to information for blind and low-vision communities!

#Echolocation is trainable, but can learning it be optimized? In work presented to CSUN2025 and now published in @csuncod.bsky.social's JTPD vol 13, @haydeegl.bsky.social illustrates the benefits of adjusting synthetic but realistic echolocation sounds to be more perceptible by novice listeners.

YouTube video by The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute SKERI • Iris Thanking Eye-Head Movement Lab (Subtitled Version)

The research enterprise is invaluable. We can easily see its importance in the cures or technologies available today. But sometimes it's difficult to see what research brings to people in the shorter term. Here is one of our participants talking about what it's meant to her. youtu.be/Yn9ywYj3UYQ