JOHN BRABYN, PH.D.
My research interests are in blindness, visual impairment and their
rehabilitation. I am privileged to have a distinguished multidisciplinary group
of colleagues in the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center at Smith-Kettlewell
to help address these problems. My own training was in engineering, and our
staff incorporates people with backgrounds in opthalmology, optometry,
psychology, audition, engineering, computer vision, and computer programming.
Our research goal is to develop and apply new scientific knowledge and
practical, cost-effective devices to better understand and address the
real-world problems of blind, visually impaired, and deaf-blind consumers.
To
improve our understanding of vision loss, we are undertaking the SKI Study, a
longitudinal assessment of visual impairment in an older population and its
effects on everyday task performance. Our R&D projects include
"Talking Signs" remotely
readable signage for blind travelers, improved communication technology for
deaf-blind persons, new jobsite instrumentation for blind employees, improved
screening technology for older persons with visual impairments, wheelchair
mobility for visually impaired persons, access to graphics for blind persons,
and collaborative projects on computer vision devices to allow blind persons to
read visual displays and to locate and read environmental signs.
We have collaborations with other Smith-Kettlewell investigators, especially
infant vision researchers William Good MD and Anthony Norcia PhD who have given
generously of their time to help address goals related to visual impairment and
rehabilitation. Many projects also make use of outside collaboration. Examples
include collaboration on wheelchair mobility for blind persons with researchers
from San Francisco State University and the University of Pittsburgh
Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center; computer vision projects for blind
persons in collaboration with Blindsight Inc and Alan Yuille PhD’s lab at UCLA;
and studies of vision impairment in the elderly in collaboration with the Buck
Institute.
Primary funding for our Center’s projects comes from the National Institute on
Disability and Rehabilitation Research, with other important sources of support
including the National Eye Institute and The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research
Institute.
Projects:
- Vision Performance and Accident Rate in Older Drivers
Publications:
- Brabyn, J. A., "New Developments in
Mobility and Orientation Aids for the Blind." IEEE Transactions
on Biomedical Engineering, 1982, Vol. BME-29, No. 4, pp. 285-289.
- Brabyn, J. (1985). A review of mobility
aids and means of assessment. In D.H. Warren and E.R. Strelow (Eds.),
Electronic soatial sensing for the blind. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff.
- Brabyn, J. (1995). Orientation and
navigation systems for the blind' an overview of different approaches. In
J.M. Gill and H.Petrie (Eds.), Proceecdings of the Conference on
Orientation and Navigation Systems for Blind Persons, Hatfield, UK. 1 - 2
February. London: Royal National Institute for the Blind.
- Brabyn, J. (1999).
Visual function in the oldest old. Eye Research Seminar, USA, 16-17.
- Brabyn, J., Schneck,
M., Haegerstrom-Portnoy, G., Lott, L. 2001. The Smith-Kettlewell Institute
longitudinal study of vision impact and its impact among the elderly: An
overview. Optometry and Vision Science, 78, 264-269.
http://www.ski.org/Rehab/JABrabyn_lab/
Prepared by Bob Dalrymple, PO Box 122, Dapto, NSW Australia 2350
eMail: bob@relativelyyours.com