Project Title: Helping the Blind See through Sound and Touch
BASIS Advisor: Ms. Das
Internship Location: NYU Langone Health Dept. of Ophthalmology
Onsite Mentor: Kevin Chan
Our lives are built on our vision, as it is our most superior sense by far. Living in a sighted world, it is easy for people to forget the obstacles blind people face. The main question my project aims to answer is: what are the limits of technology to improve the quality of life for blind patients? Working with neuroscientists in the Neuroimaging and Visual Science Laboratory at NYU Langone Health, we will develop technology that implements the other senses of a blind patient to allow them to see the world. This project aims to not only compare and contrast existing technologies but improve upon them. I will work at the NYU Langone branch experimenting with sensory substitution technology and interviewing blind patients. Not only am I testing out the devices, I am also collaborating in engineering new sensory equipment using the feedback from the aforementioned interviews. There is currently very little technology available for the blind, making my work in this field quite necessary. The overarching goal of this project is to have furthered progress within the field of sensory substitution and to have broadened my view of the world by interacting with patients who are blind.
My Posts
Week 10 (May 28-31): OCT Training
Jun 12, 2019
As I wrap up my final week at the Chan Lab, I explore some of the most fascinating work yet! This week I focused mainly in the animal laboratory, as Giles was busy with pilot-testing his experiments. I had signed up to learn about Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), which is a non-invasive diagnostic technique that […]
Week 9: (May 20-24): Cthulhu Shield Troubleshooting
Jun 05, 2019
Greetings again from the Chan Lab! As I’m coming up on the end of my senior project, the work I’m doing is only getting more interesting! This week I was able to get hands-on time with the Cthulhu Shield in the lab, and also learn a lot more about optogenetics, a technique in neuroscience in […]
Week 8 (may 13-17): Arduino Programming and Cthulhu Shield Prep
Jun 04, 2019
Welcome back y’all! Although I was unable to visit the lab due to the majority of the members being out of town, I was able to work from home. And this week I am back at it again with another coding language! I relearned the Arduino software, and the basic scripts behind it. This was […]
Week 7 (May 6-10): Introduction to Animal Laboratory
Jun 04, 2019
This week ended up being the most jam-packed one so far, so buckle in for the ride! At the Tuesday lab meeting I met the new volunteers and interns at the Chan lab. One of the lab members presented her Master’s thesis draft, and I was able to learn about new neuroimaging techniques while giving […]
Week 6 (April 29-May 3): Pre-Pilot Testing and the Search for More Programs
Jun 01, 2019
Welcome back to another exciting week at the Chan Lab! While there was no lab meeting on Tuesday, I had more than enough work on my hands with Giles’ testing. Starting Monday I was tasked with finding and editing a program that could test both spatial accuracy and reaction time. After searching through hundreds of […]
Week 5 (April 15-19): Turning Images into Sound
Jun 01, 2019
Hello again! At the lab meeting this Tuesday my lab partners were practicing their speeches for The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), andwe gave them feedback and comments on their presentations. I was able to learn about cutting edge research in the field of ophthalmology, while also touching up on my presenting […]
Week 4 (April 8-12): Spending Hours on Millisecond
May 08, 2019
Welcome back to the blog! As they say, another week another programming language! This week I was introduced to yet another psychology test database and software known as Millisecond. Millisecond offers hundreds of well-known cognitive and neuropsychological tests, and my task was to search through the tests looking for viable base programs for our study. […]
Week 3 (April 1-5): Picking up the PEBLs
May 08, 2019
Hello everyone, I’m back! On Monday Giles introduced me to a programming software called PEBL (Psychology Experiment Building Language). With this program I am able to test and modify existing psychology experiments for my lab. I was tasked with combing through hundreds of the available experiments throughout the week, and creating an excel spreadsheet stating […]
Week 2 (Mar 25-29): Lectures and Connections
Apr 17, 2019
Hello all! I have some big updates regarding my lab and my participation in it this week. On Tuesday there was a reunion at the lab, where all the high school interns and lead scientists convened on new developments in the lab. I was able to meet a high school volunteer there, Patrick, who introduced […]
Week 1: A Welcome Sight
Mar 26, 2019
Since my last time at the lab 5 months ago, lots of progress had been done on the experiment, as we are now beginning the subject recruitment phase. On Monday I finished up hours of online ethics training, and was finally set to join the lab. On Tuesday I was caught up to speed with […]
Introduction
Mar 18, 2019
Hello everyone! My name is Devon B. and I have been attending BASIS Independent Brooklyn for four years now. I have been interested in Biomedical Engineering throughout high school, and cannot wait to dive into the field with first-hand research. The main question my project aims to answer is: what are the limits of technology […]