CEO/athlete who regained his sight will address Wright State disabilities workshop

Photo of Michael May

Michael May was blinded at age 3 by an explosion. He underwent a rare stem cell transplant in 2000 and recovered partial vision after 43 years of total blindness.

The man who holds the downhill speed skiing record for a totally blind person and whose company developed the first accessible GPS for the blind will be the featured speaker at a national workshop hosted by Wright State University.

Mike May, co-founder and CEO of Sendero Group, will address the “Learning FROM Disability” workshop at 5 p.m. on May 31. His talk is free and open to the public.

The two-day workshop, held May 31-June 1, will examine research into technologies to empower people with disabilities. Topics include:

  • Blindness and Low Vision: Navigating the environment and the web
  • Movement Disorders: Biomechanical engineering solutions
  • Motor Control Disabilities: Brain-computer interfaces
  • Traumatic Brain Injury: Monitoring, compensating for and understanding the neurological bases of cognitive impairments

Keynote speakers include May; Dr. Michele Wheatly, provost of West Virginia University; and Dr. Forouzan Golshani, dean of the College of Engineering at California State University, Long Beach. Both Wheatly and Golshani are former Wright State officials.

The Learning FROM Disability Workshop is being held as part of Wright State’s Technology-based Learning with Disability Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training Program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation.

May was blinded at age 3 by an explosion. He underwent a rare stem cell transplant in 2000 and recovered partial vision after 43 years of total blindness. It was one of only a handful of documented cases of vision restoration in the past 200 years.

May’s experiences have been chronicled in Robert Kurson’s best-selling book Crashing Through.

May’s address on May 31 will be held in the Gandhi Auditorium of White Hall at the Boonshoft School of Medicine.

For more information, call 937-775-5121 or 937-775-5123 or email clark.shingledecker@wright.edu

 

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