The College of Arts, Media and Design is thrilled to welcome Alex Truesdell to Northeastern on April 4 as part of the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series.
Alex Truesdell is the Executive Director and Founder of Adaptive Design Association (ADA) and a 2015 winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. ADA is an organization that envisions and builds low-tech, affordable tools and furniture that enable children with disabilities to participate actively in their homes, schools, and communities. The organization aims to bring makers and users together to build custom adaptations – from enlarging the handle on a hairbrush for someone with minimal grip, to modifying a cafeteria bench for wheelchairs, to customizing switches so someone with limited speech and mobility can enter Morse code into their smartphone and carry on live conversations. Through these adaptive design approaches, Truesdell challenges the assumption that “disability” means fixed limitations and instead suggests that limitations can be minimized, or even eliminated, with effective user-inspired adaptations. Read more about her here.