Bowdoin interviews Doore about research grants
Bowdoin College interviewed Stacy Doore, research manager at the VEMI Lab at the University of Maine and a visiting assistant professor of computer science at Bowdoin College, about two grants she recently received for her research. Doore is collaborating with UMaine faculty members Nicholas Giudice, lab director at VEMI and a professor of spatial informatics, and Justin Dimmel, an assistant professor of mathematics education and instructional technology. The team won a first-of-its-kind, three-year $750,000 cyberlearning grant from the National Science Foundation to help students who are blind or visually impaired (BVI) increase access to graphical STEM information, the article states. “So much STEM material is visual — charts, maps, diagrams, graphs, etc. — which is a real problem for BVI students to advance in these disciplines,” said Doore. “The idea with this project is to develop multimodal systems for communicating graphical learning materials.” One modality being investigated is the use of natural language descriptions, the article states. “Think of the GPS in your car and the clear, short sentences it uses about where you need to go. We need the same sort of standardization for describing maps, charts and graphs for people who do not have the use of vision to interpret graphical information,” said Doore, who hopes to involve students in the project during summer 2019, Bowdoin reported. Doore also won a Google grant along with Penny Rheingans, director of the School of Computing and Information Science at UMaine, and Anne Applin from Southern Maine Community College, to encourage women to pursue pathways in computer science research at Maine colleges, according to Bowdoin. “The number of women pursuing Ph.D.s in computer science is phenomenally low, and part of that is sometimes due to a feeling of ‘impostor syndrome.’ CS research is often a very male-dominated world,” said Doore. “We want to create a statewide mentoring network of women CS students, faculty and industry leaders. Women in the CS field at all levels are not really connected at the moment in Maine, but we hope to help change that.”