Michal Kopera, an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics, recently gave a talk to the National Federation of the Blind. The talk focused on his research into ocean modeling, which uses inherently visual data presentation techniques like animations, plots and graphs.
To overcome the challenge of presenting visual information to a blind audience, Kopera worked with mathematics graduate student Amelia Palmer-Dusenbury. Together, they developed ideas for 3D printed and sonic representations of specific plots from Kopera’s ocean modeling research.
During the presentation, the audience analyzed the sonified time-history of the averaged kinetic energy of the ocean simulated by two different models: HYCOM, the current ocean model of the US Navy, and h-NUMO, a prototype of the next generation ocean model developed by Kopera’s research group at Boise State in collaboration with Florida State University. The group of blind graduate students and professionals compared the two records and were able to draw their conclusions and compare their analysis with a recently submitted paper.
“This experience made me reflect on the accessibility of scientific research and ways in which we could increase the impact of our work by employing more accessible publication and communication practices,” Kopera said about the presentation.