A University of Texas at Arlington personal computer science and engineering professor has gained a Nationwide Science Foundation (NSF) grant well worth a lot more than $400,000 to incorporate assistive technologies for individuals with disabilities.
Ishfaq Ahmad, UT Arlington professor of personal computer science and engineering, stated the grant will make it possible for the NSF’s Exploration Activities for Undergraduates (REU) website at UTA to continue on.
The task is multidisciplinary and involves professors from all above the UT Arlington campus. Kathryn Daniel, professor in the School of Nursing and Wellness Innovation, is co-principal investigator.
The grant is open to all domestic undergraduates with computing backgrounds, with a aim on women and minorities at UTA, Ahmad claimed.
“What’s great about the task is it tackles troubles people today with disabilities facial area each and every working day,” he mentioned. “We aim to aid people with disabilities as a result of innovation and the generation of applications that they can use in life.”
Titled “REU Web page: Assistive Systems for Men and women with Disabilities,” this NSF grant proceeds perform began on a 2018 $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Division of Training, supplemented with $300,000 in UTA matching resources. A single of its aims is to noticeably increase the amount of doctoral pupils, especially between gals and minorities.
Some of the investigation factors of the grant involve assistive robotics, visual and hearing aids, sensible treatment and artificial intelligence. The undergraduates in the program will acquire working experience in communications, ethics, leadership, collaboration and tutorial crafting capabilities.
Ahmad also is the director of the Center for Advanced Computing Systems and a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. His investigation passions are in the broader regions of parallel and distributed computing systems and their purposes, optimization algorithms, multimedia systems, movie compression, assistive technologies, good ability grids and vitality-aware sustainable computing. His work in these regions has led to just about 275 content articles in books, peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. Ahmad is a recipient of a lot of analysis awards and recognitions.
Hong Jiang, chair of the Office of Laptop Science and Engineering, said this kind of undertaking could have existence-transforming impacts for persons with disabilities.
“We know that the improvements and discoveries that are yielded from this investigate will aid the people with disabilities neighborhood in their everyday life,” he mentioned. “The job goes outside of computer science.”