[community] Astrophysicist who is blind uses sonification in her work

Taliesin Love Smith ts14hh at student.ocadu.ca
Wed Feb 17 01:33:54 UTC 2016


Perhaps also of interest.

*A legally blind astronomer sees stars better than most.*
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.3433757/legally-blind-astronomer-in-nova-scotia-sees-stars-better-than-most-1.3433760

Interestingly, when the telescope provides the lens, the person doesn't
need one and it doesn't get in the way.
Taliesin

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 2:33 PM, Taliesin Love Smith <
ts14hh at student.ocadu.ca> wrote:

> I don't think I can get it live in St. John's, but I will be looking for
> this talk after TED. Thanks for sharing.
> Taliesin
>
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 1:51 PM, Tara Robertson <trobertson at langara.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> This person, Wanda Diaz Merced, Sonic astrophysicist, is speaking today
>> at TED in the 11am-12:45 (Pacific) timeslot. It's being streamed live at
>> many public and academic libraries (list of places for Vancouver:
>> http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2016/02/watch-live-stream-ted-2016-vancouver-conference/
>> )
>>
>> While searching for ways to study stellar radiation without relying on
>> sight, Wanda Diaz Merced has developed a way to represent complex data
>> about our universe as sound.
>>
>> When Wanda Diaz Merced lost her sight in her early 20s, her dreams of
>> studying stars in the visually oriented scientific world suffered a major
>> setback -- until she discovered “sonification,” a way to turn huge data
>> sets into audible sound using pitch, duration and other properties. Merced
>> realized that she could use her ears to detect patterns in stellar radio
>> data, and could uncover connections obscured by graphs and visual
>> representation.
>>
>> While working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
>> Merced’s sonifications inspired musician and researcher Gerhard Sonnert to
>> create X-Ray Hydra, an album of oddly jazzy music based on her audio
>> representations.
>>
>> https://conferences.ted.com/TED2016/program/speakers.php#2906
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Tara
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: community [mailto:community-bounces at lists.idrc.ocadu.ca] On Behalf
>> Of Harnum, Alan
>> Sent: February-15-16 7:49 AM
>> To: Inclusive Design Community
>> Subject: [community] Astrophysicist who is blind uses sonification in her
>> work
>>
>> Really interesting story (forwarded to me via @tararobertson in BC) about
>> a space scientist who’s been using sonification around astronomical data.
>>
>> http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.ca/2015/03/the-normalcy-curve.html
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>
>



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