Astronomy is often portrayed as a visual science. A quick search through popular and social media turns up countless stories accompanied by dazzling images of planets, stars, and galaxies. Of course, these images can be challenging or impossible to access for blind and low-vision (BLV) communities. However, nearly all of these astronomical images contain light that the human eye cannot detect. Most of NASA’s observatories in space, for example, look at many kinds of “invisible” light. The images are translations of the information captured by the observatories that then travel in a digital for ..read more

While I consider myself a champion user of my computer now, it wasn’t always this way. My combined hearing and vision loss made me feel isolated – and because I had limited access to technology to stay in touch with my family, friends and community, I felt even more alone. I’ve experienced significant hearing loss since childhood, and my vision has diminished over the past decade. As a result, I have frequent appointments at The John Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute. During one visit, my therapist encouraged me to apply to iCanConnect, the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program. The pr ..read more

My name is Kemal Gorey. I am a media composer, music industry professional, co-chair of the PR Committee at Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities (RAMPD) – and I am visually disabled, which means I am a natural problem solver, inventor, and out-of-the-box thinker. I was born in Istanbul in 1989: a city which is extremely chaotic, and definitely not designed well in terms of accessibility. Nevertheless, once you fall in love with that city, there is no way back. I come from a classical music education background. Scoring music for films, TV shows, animated series, video ga ..read more

The notion that we as blind people can have visual experiences that are radically different from, but analogous to, the visual experiences of sighted folks is just something that is not talked about in scientific research. We are often mistaken as speaking metaphorically of light or images, being poetic or perhaps delusional, but this is not the case. For me – who can non-optically see my hands typing on the keyboard now – such experiences are very real, affirmable in neuroscience studies and are not going away. The Vision In Blind Experiences Survey (VIBES) represents the first step along a b ..read more

I was born in New York, but grew up in the Midwest until I was 16. My mom got really sick with terminal cancer then, so we moved to Los Angeles to be with my sisters who lived out here. Entertainment runs in my family. My sisters originally came to California to be professional dancers. They danced with MC Hammer and Heavy D and established a life here. They were able to bring us to be with them and take care of us. I started my relationship with the arts through music. When I was in 8th grade, the coolest guy in class was a rapper – and you had to be good at rapping to hang. So, I learned to ..read more

It was a warm and breezy Monday afternoon in spring. I found myself filled with gratitude and joy, and I could feel my smile opening my heart as I relaxed into the beanbag poof I was sitting in. The radiant sunlight warmed the room, and all I could do was bask in it, sipping from the 3D monkey mug of coffee in my hands. This was so much better than the record label experience I had always heard about. My husband and team were settled in around me at the We Could Be Music house in Costa Rica, and we were all discussing strategy and promo for the music we were working on together. Our ideas flow ..read more

When I graduated from high school back in 2008, I was the only student at this particular school with total blindness and autism. Mind you, I lived near a desert, and in an area like Lancaster, California, it can seem kinda lonely. Luckily, about a year after graduation, I finally moved back to Los Angeles with my family. I’d signed up with the California Department of Rehabilitation and had a counselor named Carlos Amaral who’s now retired. When we met, he told me, “Either move out on your own, or go live with another friend or family member.” So that’s what I did, and the living situation wo ..read more

I’m Hayley and I was born with a rare genetic eye condition known as Wagner Syndrome. It’s so rare that most doctors are unfamiliar with it. Several members of my family are blind and nearly all of them had failed retinal detachment surgery in the 80’s and 90’s, although some did lose their sight to glaucoma. Fortunately, when I experienced a detached retina in 1994, the doctors recognized a different approach was needed and my surgery was a success. Although I can’t legally drive, have little peripheral vision, and can’t see in the dark, I do consider myself to be very lucky: my eyesight is s ..read more

My name is Aaron Rawley. I was born with Retinopathy of Prematurity and cerebral palsy as a one-pound preemie. My parents brought me to the Infant-Toddler program at Perkins School for the Blind, and I slowly met other independent blind adults in the community. My time with Perkins programs helped build me into the capable person I am today. Growing up, I have fond memories of attending Space Camp, learning to cook in a mock kitchen at Perkins and the Carroll Center, and learning braille on my heavy gray Perkins Brailler. Finding my passion When I went to high school, I wanted to understand th ..read more

Transitioning from high school to college is a hard task for anyone – living on your own, navigating a complex social scene, dealing with more rigorous classes, and the stress that comes with all of that. But when you add a vision impairment into all of that, college can seem almost unfathomable. Luckily for me, I had a support system guiding me the whole way. This journey began years before I started college, when I decided to attend a private high school – one that had only had one vision impaired student before me. Naturally, this situation gave me a crash course in self-advocacy that most ..read more