Susan Chaplinsky’s $3.4M estate gift funds endowments supporting disabled Illinois students
The family of Susan J. Chaplinsky sits on her memorial bench in the center of the Disability Resources and Educational Services building. Her siblings Kathy, Amy, Molly and Pete sat with her plaque. (Photo by Ethan Simmons)
To honor their sister’s time at the University of Illinois, the siblings of Susan Jane Chaplinsky thought a memorial bench in the open-air plaza of Disability Resources and Educational Services would be a fitting tribute.
Because the work of DRES was a big part of what propelled Chaplinsky, living with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, to become an acclaimed business scholar and beloved instructor. She said so herself.
“[DRES at Illinois] … put me on a path to achieve the professional success I have attained over the course of my life,” Chaplinsky wrote in her will. “It remains a unique institution for students with disabilities to level the inequities caused by life and health and allows them to achieve a measure of success. I would be proud to have my name associated with an institution with these goals and aspirations.”
Upon her passing in November 2022, Chaplinsky dedicated a substantial portion of her wealth to the DRES: A $3.4 million estate gift which will support two endowment funds for Illinois students with disabilities.
The family got to witness the memorial for Chaplinsky at the DRES 75th Anniversary Open House on April 19, surrounded by staff, alumni and visitors. College of Applied Health Sciences Dean Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell gave thanks to the family and to Chaplinsky for her generosity.
”It’s going to change much of what we can do here at DRES, I can’t thank you guys enough for being willing to be here with us today to celebrate Susan’s commitment to us,” Hanley-Maxwell said. “Susan is an example of many students who have graduated from the University of Illinois who look back on DRES and say, ‘If it weren’t for DRES, I don’t know what I would have done.’”
‘A lifeline’
Chaplinsky graduated from Illinois in 1975 with her bachelor’s in economics. She went a couple hours north to obtain her MBA and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago.
What followed was a stellar academic and teaching career, where Chaplinsky taught finance at the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and eventually the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, where she spent her final 28 years.
But with her early obstacles, she charted a course her family could’ve never foreseen.
In sixth grade, Chaplinsky was diagnosed with a severe form of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. In a matter of months, Chaplinsky went from being an active, able-bodied preteen to needing a wheelchair to get around day to day.
Growing up in Palatine, Illinois, a village 30 miles northwest of Chicago, Susan’s sister Kathy would bring her lunches during high school, since Susan couldn’t access the cafeteria with her wheelchair. As Chaplinsky confronted her new health challenges, others began to place unfair limits on her abilities.
“My sister was always very smart, brilliant, but there was no guidance counselor encouraging her to look at colleges,” Kathy Arter said.
“Then our parents learned about the program at Illinois, and it was just like a lifeline to them. There was a place that not only could accommodate her, but they wanted her there.”
Illinois, with its wheelchair accessible campus and the Division of Rehabilitation Education Services led by director Tim Nugent, was an opportunity too promising to pass up. After being accepted onto campus, Chaplinsky’s life and confidence transformed, her siblings said.
Every time they’d visit her at Allen Hall, she was surrounded by friends, going out to bars or movie showings on campus, living a regular student’s life.
But she took her studies seriously, and Nugent played a hand in that. Chaplinsky “talked a lot about Nugent,” Arter said; he was demanding, and held high expectations for the students he worked with.
“Some of that, with Susan, she left here with that: ‘They expect me to go on and be a success, I won’t disappoint them,’” Arter said. “I don’t think Susan ever forgot her debt to the university, for that opportunity.”
An outpouring of support flowed from the UVA campus after Chaplinsky’s passing. Her siblings didn’t always get to see the teaching side of Susan; a memorial event they attended allowed them to see a new side of their sister.
“The great passion of her life was teaching,” said her sister, Amy Meehan. “She was interested in students, she always rooted for the underdog. She just views this gift as an extension of that: ‘I can help for years to come.’”
Plenty of the traits they knew well—Chaplinsky’s sports fandom and dry humor, for example—also shined through in their remembrances.
“She’s funny, she’s brilliant,” sister Molly Gillis said. “I think about all the time, her footprint is ginormous when she had so many things that could’ve limited her reach and they didn’t.”
The siblings and extended family made a big showing at the DRES Open House. They gratefully packed in around their sister’s newly arrived memorial bench and posed for pictures in the cool spring weather.
“Maybe somebody sees that bench, and it gives them the confidence, the energy to go forward, to dream big, and to do something they didn’t think they could do,” brother Pete Chaplinsky said.
Illini wheelchair basketball teams take on competition at Activities and Recreation Center
Women’s wheelchair basketball player Hailey Smith and men’s player Martrell Stevens pose together in front of this weekend’s game schedule.
For the first and only time this season, the Illinois men’s and women’s wheelchair basketball teams are facing the competition in their home court at this weekend’s Illinois College Tournament.
A total of 22 games will be played at the Activities and Recreation Center (201 E. Peabody Dr., Champaign) from Friday, Feb. 9 to Saturday, Feb. 10, including eight individual contests for the Illini women’s and men’s teams.
For Friday’s 5 p.m. women’s game against The University of Texas at Arlington and the men’s 7 p.m. contest against University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, the teams want fans to fill the stands.
“We want to get as many people in the gym as possible—we’ll have the band and the cheerleaders, we’re trying to make it a loud and fun environment for our student athletes to play in,” said Stephanie Wheeler, head coach of both Illinois wheelchair basketball teams.
Wheeler, head coach of the women’s team since 2010, took over coaching duties for the men’s team after former head coach Matt Buchi moved to a new role at Illinois.
On Saturday, seniors will be recognized between the 3 p.m. men’s game against Mizzou and the 4:45 p.m. women’s game versus the University of Arizona.
“We have veteran guys and ladies who have been in the game, and some who are brand new to college basketball,” said Matt Poland, the assistant coach for both teams. “It’s been fun having that blend, and not only helping the fifth- and sixth-year players finish out stellar careers, but help the next generation come into their own.”
This season, the men’s and women’s teams are playing together more than ever, with coach Wheeler leading joint practices alongside full-time assistant coach Matt Poland and volunteer assistant coach Ranley Clayton, herself an alumna of the program.
The two teams crossed over in practices before this season, often meeting for skill work, but now nearly everything is done together, with the 22 student-athletes mixing or facing off in most scrimmages and drills.
It’s a unique spin for two uniquely structured teams, with sixth-year seniors Gabe DenBraber, Ryan Glatchak, Marlee Wagstaff and Ali Ibanez and seniors Shawn Sloan and Mary Wagstaff shouldering much of their teams’ game experience. This week’s focus: staying disciplined on defense, playing free on offense, Wheeler said.
“Both teams are getting a lot out of training with each other,” she said. “It’s challenging both teams on physical and mental level—it’s been a really positive change and connects the two together.”
Illini wheelchair basketball teams will face their final tests next month at the National Intercollegiate Wheelchair Basketball Tournament College Nationals. The women’s team will head to the University of Alabama (March 6-9); the men’s team will travel to Marshall, Minnesota the following week (March 13-16).
“The message has been each game is a building block on how we want the rest of the season to be going up to the next tournament,” Poland said. “Every single team goes to the last tournament, we have an opportunity to every single game build off of it, and in Nationals is where we need to be our best self.”
Before then, the women’s team will travel to Brookfield, Wisconsin, to play in the Big Cheese Classic (Feb. 16-17); the men’s team will play in the Arizona College Tournament, hosted in Tucson (March 1-2).
A scholarship formed by recent Illini wheelchair basketball players supports today’s athletes
The 2016-17 wheelchair basketball men’s team poses in front of Grange Grove. Several alumni contributed to a legacy scholarship to support current wheelchair basketball athletes.
In the heat of an Illinois men’s wheelchair basketball season, intense morning practices roll into sociable team meals and lively late-night gaming sessions. The hours spent between busy student-athlete schedules—on buses and dorm rooms—are where teammates became brothers.
For all that the Illinois men’s wheelchair basketball teams of the early 2010s accomplished on the court—a National Wheelchair Basketball Association intercollegiate championship and three second-place finishes under former Coach Mike Frogley and Coach Matt Buchi—they’ve surpassed that off it, starting careers and raising families.
Now, the alums of this so-called “Band of Brothers” have come together once more to support the next generation of Illini wheelchair sport athletes through the establishment of an annual scholarship.
Their contributions, through “The Fighting Illini Wheelchair Basketball Alumni Legacy Scholarship Fund,” have been granted to two wheelchair basketball athletes in the past two terms.
“This scholarship is born from people that truly love each other and care about the future of the program at the University of Illinois,” said Mak Nong, former Illinois wheelchair basketball player and founder of the fund. “For us to be able to give back and make things easier for the future generation, that’s our moral obligation: to make this place even better than it was for us.”
The most recent recipient, rising senior Mary Wagstaff of the women’s wheelchair basketball team, used the $1,200 to pay out the remainder of her spring semester tuition.
Wagstaff “was both surprised and extremely honored” to receive the recognition, she said. Men’s team junior Martrell Stevens, now a team co-captain, received the inaugural sum in 2022.
For the alumni who funded this scholarship, it represents a continued commitment to growing the game of wheelchair basketball. Many have taken jobs in the field of adaptive athletics, managing sports programs designed for children and adults with disabilities.
Moreover, the fund honors what money can’t capture: the enduring teachings from their coaches and tight teammate bonds that have carried far beyond their last plays on the basketball floor.
“I think at a certain point towards the end of our run, we started realizing these really were the golden years,” Nong said. “But even now, establishing the scholarship and still talking as adults, we’re making the platinum era now, right?”
Tight Bonds
Maureen Gilbert wears many hats as coordinator for the Office of Campus Life at Disability Resources and Educational Services, better known as DRES. To more than 29 classes of Illinois wheelchair student-athletes, she’s “Mo,” director of their athletic programs, point-person for travel and eligibility questions and trusted confidante. Some lovingly call her “Mom.”
On bus rides with track and field and basketball events, one can usually tell if the team is gelling off the floor, Gilbert said. Team chemistry always takes work to develop, but some teams bond faster than others.
“Once in a while, you get those athletes who seem to click and they make it happen themselves,” Gilbert said. “Like with Mak’s group.”
The men’s basketball team gets hyped up. (Photo provided)
Martinez Johnson joined the team in 2013 as a transfer student from Atlanta. It didn’t take long for the memories to start stacking up with his teammates.
“[We’d] just hang out and make sure we were doing our best to balance our social life, school and basketball,” Johnson said. “And we leaned on each other to make sure everyone was doing OK mentally as well.”
Just before the school year, Johnson recalls the team traveling to the 4H campground of Allerton Park for several memorable exercises. In what’s now a yearly tradition under Coach Buchi, the players wrote down their individual fears for the season before throwing them into a burning campfire.
“When I came in 10 years ago as a coach, that was one of the first things that I tried to do: have a bonding experience to learn about each other outside of basketball,” Buchi said. “And that’s what really bonds a lot of these guys for a lifetime, a comfortable place to be vulnerable as young men with our team.
“That bonding took a while to get there, but it just needed activities and locations to blossom.”
Jacob Tyree’s favorite memories with the team tend to revolve around food: morning rushes to Original House of Pancakes or Merry Ann’s Diner after long, physical practices, or cherished visits to Cravings, the Asian cuisine restaurant.
“It could be a really crappy practice, like maybe things just were not clicking on the court—coach is yelling at you for things, your teammates are yelling at you for things—and then you go out afterwards and it’s now a positive bonding experience,” Tyree said.
As the teammates graduated and dispersed across the country and the world, those relationships stayed strong.
A random, gloomy day in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic led Nong to check in with many of his old teammates. He’d been pondering ways to give back to the things “he truly cared about,” and Illinois neared the top of Nong’s list.
His calls gave way to proposals: “Would you want to contribute to a scholarship?”
After checking with DRES and the College of Applied Health Sciences advancement team, the groundwork was laid.
“Mak took the lead on all of that,” Gilbert said. “In fact, it was a great gift when they told me what they were doing. It gives a good example to our current students of paying forward and how to support those who come after you.”
The generosity didn’t stop with the scholarship, either. In the spring, program alumni used crowdfunding to finance customized, tailored suit jackets for the graduating seniors on the men’s and women’s wheelchair basketball teams.
“It was a surreal full circle moment to see my alumni, the guys that I coached, are now taking care of the players that I’m coaching now,” Buchi said.
For us to be able to give back and make things easier for the future generation, that’s our moral obligation: to make this place even better than it was for us.
Mak Nong
Illinois Class of 2017, wheelchair basketball player
Life After Basketball
Mak Nong (center) prepares to check into the game. (Photo by Craig Pessman)
After graduating in 2017, Nong played professional wheelchair basketball in Europe for a spell, winning a league championship for LUC Handibasket in Lille, France. What stuck with him was the governance over the sport that was present overseas.
“To them, it was just sport. People without disabilities were playing wheelchair basketball and getting paid to do it,” Nong said. “So, I was thinking, ‘How do I spread this joy to people?’ Recreation is a big opportunity for that.”
Years after graduating, many members of the wheelchair basketball teams have stayed in the orbit of adaptive sports, committing time and effort to growing the scene in myriad ways.
Nong is a program manager for Great Lakes Adaptive Sports Association (GLASA) in Lake Forest, Ill., overseeing a wide range of sports programs—from football, tennis, track and field, swimming, soccer—suited to disabled athletes of all ages.
His journey truly began as a young boy pushing along his wheelchair in Los Cerritos Mall near Long Beach, Calif. Longtime coach Lisa Hilborn noticed Nong and asked if he’d be interested in trying wheelchair sports.
“I didn’t want to do it at all, I was freaking out, but then I went to a practice and I fell in love with it and kept going back,” Nong said. “I’m trying to spread the love she gave to me to other people.”
By the time he was a senior in high school, Nong was heavily recruited for wheelchair basketball. Coach Frogley’s pitch from the University of Illinois stood out from the pack.
“He stressed the importance of education, he catered to me as not only a person but an athlete as well. Just having that balance and showing that we can use sport as a tool to get to where our success is,” Nong said.
Tyree, too, has found a career in the field as training coordinator for Move United, a nonprofit committed to facilitating adaptive sports opportunities. He returned to his hometown of Roanoke, Va., to found the Roanoke Stars Wheelchair Basketball program.
Like other program alums, he repeatedly credits his coaches’ attention to detail for his professional success.
“We all saw ourselves as having our roles, and thought about how do we support each other to fill in the gaps where this is my weakness, but that’s your strength? When I’m struggling, I can lean on you a little bit more,” Tyree said. “I think that that mindset really fell into creating that excellence and trickled into what we do full-time.”
Alums who haven’t found careers in adaptive athletics have stayed around the game in some way, like Derek Hoot and Johnson, who started recording podcasts about it.
In the “Push Podcast,” the pair of alums discuss the happenings of U.S. wheelchair basketball and bring on established guests. The duo wants to break its hiatus soon, Johnson said.
“Wheelchair basketball has made a big impact on all our lives. Being able to find a sports community as individuals with disabilities is huge,” Johnson said. “I think that’s a big reason we have all stuck around adaptive athletics, is we know the change it made in our lives could be duplicated for the next generation.”
Buchi subscribes to the coaching axiom that a “successful season” can’t be determined until the players leave the program and grow into adults. Ten years in, those seeds are starting to sprout: Buchi is beginning to see talented recruits who’ve been coached by his own wheelchair basketball alums.
“The next step is happening, I have so many of my guys that are actually coaching and are giving back to juniors programs,” Buchi said. “They get to put a little bit of our Illinois stamp on these kids before I even get them.
“Our alumni need to think as soon as they graduate, how do I give back to the guys that are coming up next? Because there’s always going to be that next person that comes up and you want them to have the best experience possible.”
Teammates pose with Coach Mike Frogley (bottom row, second from right) and legendary accessibility pioneer Tim Nugent (second row, second from left).
Joe Rank is helping sustain a campus resource he could’ve used as a military Veteran who returned for further education: The Chez Veterans Center
Joe Rank, left, stands with his son Jay Rank at the WWII Memorial. Rank, a Vietnam War Veteran, recently returned from an Honor Flight visit to Washington, D.C. (Photo provided)
By the fall of 1965, the conflict between North and South Vietnam had escalated, as had the United States’ military involvement. With the draft looming, Urbana teenager Joe Rank, newly enrolled at the University of Illinois, joined the Naval ROTC unit at the advice of one of his fraternity brothers a year after reserve officer training was no longer compulsory.
After four years as an undergraduate student majoring in advertising, Rank was deployed to Vietnam, where his responsibilities included pinging enemy submarines and managing gunners aboard the destroyer USS Lyman K. Swenson and the cruiser USS England.
Following his three-year tour, Rank returned to the university and embarked on several career journeys. He taught new cohorts of reserve officers, helmed a $20 million Navy advertising campaign, and developed two decades of relationships at the University of Illinois Alumni Association.
“If anybody 55 years ago said ‘You’re going to make a career of the Navy,’ I would’ve told them they were absolutely crazy,” Rank said. “All of life’s twists and turns, I couldn’t have planned it.”
The retired Rank, now 76, is helping sustain a campus resource he could’ve used as a military Veteran who returned for further education: The Chez Veterans Center.
“Joe is a bridge between the university’s deep history in the Veteran community and what the future can be,” said Chez Director of Operations Andy Bender. “Joe has the passion for this work, being able to take the things we need and then bringing in the support to do it.”
“They’ve got a clear mission now to serve all veterans,” Rank said of the Chez Center. “Veterans bring diversity to the campus.”
Rank, who lives in Urbana with his wife Pam, has strong ties with his identities as an Illinois alumnus and Veteran. He recently returned from an Honor Flight, a no-cost, full-day visit to military memorials in Washington, D.C., with 96 other Vietnam Veterans and three from the Korean War.
Witnessing historic monuments such as the Arlington National Cemetery and feeling warm receptions at every point led to an unforgettable experience. At the Vietnam Memorial Wall, Rank made a charcoal rubbing of the etched name of Marine Corps 2nd Lt. David Skibbe, a fellow Illinois Naval ROTC officer who died during a mission in 1970.
“He was just an outstanding leader,” Rank said. “His death brought the war close to home for me.”
Rank has stayed in the University of Illinois orbit since he was a kid. His mother worked in the Dean’s Office of the College of Commerce, now the Gies College of Business. Many of his friends coming up through Urbana High School were children of professors.
When he returned from Vietnam, Rank became an instructor for Illinois ROTC classes, earning the title of assistant professor of Naval Science while obtaining his master’s degree in advertising.
Three years of 18-hour days in Vietnam made the daily study grind feel easy.
They’ve got a clear mission now to serve all veterans,” Rank said of the Chez Center. “Veterans bring diversity to the campus.
Joe Rank
Vietnam War Veteran and Illinois alumnus
“I was at the library at 8 o’clock in the morning, got my work done by 4 p.m.,” Rank said. “I had that discipline—I got one B in graduate school.”
Rank soon went back to sea, when the Navy did something that “didn’t make much sense” to him at the time: Brought Rank in as director of National Advertising for Navy recruiting.
During his tenure, the Navy unveiled the “It’s Not a Job, It’s an Adventure” advertising slogan that rippled across national airwaves in the early 1980s. The campaign even inspired an infamous sketch from “Saturday Night Live.”
“You know you had a successful campaign when it was parodied on SNL,” Rank said.
After 20 years of active-duty service, Rank faced the test of reintegrating into civilian life and passed with flying colors. The mission of the Chez Center has connected with him from the start.
While serving as vice president of membership and marketing at the Alumni Association, he was brought into an ad hoc committee to address the vision of Chez, then known as the Center for Wounded Veterans in Higher Education.
“The intent was it would be much like (Disability Resources and Educational Services) was for the World War II Vets. It would accommodate severely, profoundly injured military veterans who wanted to come back to college.”
The technology of war has changed and casualties have decreased. As that cohort of seriously injured Veterans of college age dried up, the question was how to transform the center’s mission.
Like DRES, Chez has morphed its service to apply to a wider range of students and staff. On the advisory committee, the word “wounded” was eliminated from the title, as Chez became a one-stop shop for campus folks with military connections.
“Originally, it was a welcoming cocoon for people to recreate that military atmosphere and camaraderie. But in reality, the whole idea is to get people comfortable enough with the university and the civilian environment and push them out, get them involved in their major,” Rank said.
“The idea is not to segregate them into a pseudo military unit, but get them comfortable with what they’re going to experience in civilian life.”
Rank’s support of the Chez Center is multifaceted, as both a donor and member of its advisory board.
“He’s a great sounding board for me,” Bender said. “He’s been a part of this project since the very beginning.”
“He’s a great supporter of us, of the Veterans, and of the university at large.”
Alumna’s return to DRES provides continuity at a pivotal pointry of the article that hooks the reader
Heather Stout returned to the University of Illinois from the School of Law at St. Louis University and has roots in Central Illinois (Photo by Ethan Simmons)
When Disability Resources and Educational Services, better known as DRES, began advertising for a permanent director of operations in 2023, it was apparent to current employees who would be a great fit.
“Before there was ever the possibility of Heather [Stout] becoming DRES director of operations, my mentor and the first DRES director I worked for, Dr. Brad Hedrick, mentioned her as one of his respected colleagues working at a peer institution,” said Susann Sears, director of Beckwith Residential Support Services, which is affiliated with DRES and provides care for disabled students.
Stout was hired in June and officially joined DRES in August, succeeding interim Director Kim Collins, who retired at the end of June. Stout returned to DRES with established relationships in hand.
“I worked closely with Susann Sears, because she and I were in similar roles at [the University of Illinois Chicago] and Illinois, respectively,” Stout said. “Paige Lindahl-Lewis [assistant director at Beckwith] and I graduated from AHS together. Paige and I both graduated from rehab programs when I graduated from Illinois.”
Stout returned to the University of Illinois from the School of Law at St. Louis University and has roots in Central Illinois. She got her bachelor’s degree from Penn State and a master’s in rehab counseling at Illinois, interning at DRES along the way. Stout emphasized the values of continuity.
“It’s important that Illinois has some long-term staff that have historical knowledge and cultural context for DRES and our program,” she said. “In higher ed, there have been a lot of changes across universities, particularly in disability. It’s good that there has been consistency at DRES, along with some of the changes in staffing.”
Maureen Gilbert, DRES’ coordinator for the unit’s Office of Campus Life, agreed that Stout’s understanding of the university was a huge plus.
“Her familiarity with campus and DRES is helpful because she understands the impact and presence DRES has,” Gilbert said. “With Heather’s experience and knowledge base, she can advocate for a strong presence at the table, especially when the discussion involves disability and accommodations across all aspects of the campus community.”
That’s especially important because of the tremendous growth in DRES student enrollment.
Gilbert said that “in four years, our numbers have increased 33 percent. Our access specialists have caseload numbers of 600 to 700 students; we have waitlists for mental health services counseling and neuropsych testing; and our service requests for deaf and hard-of-hearing students and staff are increasing. To continue supporting students and their growing needs, increased financial resources are essential to support current and prospective staff.”
Her familiarity with campus and DRES is helpful because she understands the impact and presence DRES has.
Maureen Gilbert
DRES coordinator, Office of Campus Life
Fulfilling the DRES mission and serving increasing enrollment will require expanded facilities. To that end, Stout said a new facility is necessary. She has seen proposed building designs and said, “It is my hope that in the next five years, we can talk more about that and what we can do to make DRES and each of the departments centrally located. That’s a very thoughtful conversation we’ll need.”
Stout referenced the Center for Movement and Performance, a proposed state-of-the-art, stand-alone indoor multi-use facility for the wheelchair track and wheelchair basketball programs with enhanced strength and conditioning, equipment, sports medicine, training and meeting areas.
Adam Bleakney, renowned coach of the men’s and women’s wheelchair track and road racing teams, said, “We have a vision for a facility that is built upon the legacy pillars of our program—service, outreach, research, education and innovation—and that will allow us both room for growth and increased interdisciplinary collaboration across campus and the community.”
Although facility upgrades are high on her list of things to do, Stout acknowledged the priority is “serving the entire student.”
“We have a career services area,” she said. “We have mental health resources. One of the things I hope to expand upon is our connections with each academic department. Are we working with and partnering with them so that students are getting the accommodations that they need and each unit can work with us effectively? And are we doing what is best for graduate and professional students, as well as the faculty and administration in those programs?”
Early in her career, Stout worked as an interim coordinator/disability specialist at the University of Illinois Chicago, and worked as director of the Disability Resource Center at Purdue University.
She said Purdue’s approach to disability was “very methodical, very careful” and said Illinois had a similar approach.
“Illinois was the first model for disability resources in higher ed. It includes programs that few universities have,” Stout said. “It also has tremendous support. Being located within an academic college is a crucial connection for faculty and students. Our history is unparalleled in the U.S. and continues to include incredible resources. I hope to build upon that legacy as we look to the future and envision what DRES can be five years and 10 years from now.”
Morgan McCammon of the University of Illinois has been selected to participate in the inaugural Team USA vs. College All-Star competition taking place at the NCAA Women’s Final Four, as announced Monday by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee and National Wheelchair Basketball Association.
McCammon will compete for the College All-Star team, and the competition is an effort of the USOPC and NCAA Para-College Inclusion Project, which was established to grow awareness around adaptive sport programming at the collegiate level.
“I’m very excited for Morgan to have this opportunity to represent Illinois at the Women’s Final Four,” said Stephanie Wheeler, coach of the women’s wheelchair basketball team at Illinois. “Morgan is so deserving of this honor and her selection is a testament to who she is as a person, student and athlete. She will be an incredible representative of Illinois and the sport of wheelchair basketball!”
The college all-star roster is comprised of one athlete from each of the six women’s wheelchair basketball teams across our country. The College All-Stars are comprised of:
Abby Bauleke (University of Alabama), one-time Paralympian and Paralympic bronze medalist
Crystal Jones (City University of New York)
Grace Wembolua (University of Texas at Arlington), one-time Paralympian
Emilee Gustafson (University of Arizona)
Mada McCabe (University of Wisconsin-Whitewater)
Morgan McCammon (University of Illinois)
Team USA’s roster is comprised of athletes who represented the United States at the Tokyo Paralympic Games. The U.S. roster is comprised of:
Darlene Hunter (Commerce, Mich.), three-time Paralympian and two-time Paralympic medalist
Zoe Voris (Chicago), one-time Paralympian and Paralympic bronze medalist
Courtney Ryan (San Diego), one-time Paralympian and Paralympic bronze medalist
Natalie Schneider (Ord, Neb.), four-time Paralympian and three-time Paralympic medalist
Lindsey Zurbrugg (Portland), one-time Paralympian and Paralympic bronze medalist
Before the Team USA vs. College All-Star competition tips off, athletes from both teams will volunteer their time to host a wheelchair basketball skills clinic for local athletes with disabilitites. The clinic—hosted by the National Wheelchair Basketball Association—is expected to draw dozens of youth from the Dallas metropolitan area.
“I am thrilled to be representing the University of Illinois and the NWBA at the Final Four event as we share our sport with the world!,” McCammon said. “Wheelchair basketball has given me the opportunity to conquer dreams I thought I had lost, and I am beyond excited to share my experiences and knowledge with those who are just learning about the sport and the next generation of NWBA athletes.”
Team USA and the College All-Stars will take the court during halftimes of the NCAA Divisions II and III Women’s Final Four, located at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, on April 1.
For more information about the wheelchair basketball at the University of Illinois, please visit https://dres.illinois.edu/.
Vince Lara-Cinisomo in the AHS office of communications spoke recently with Jon Gunderson and other members of the DRES Accessible IT Group.
Online technology is an evolving ecosystem for some disabilities (Stock image)
VINCE LARA: Jon, what does the DRES Accessibility IT Group do?
JON GUNDERSON: Our mission on campus is to help the university understand the accessibility of the online resources that the university creates and uses. Online information technology is still, really, a frontier in terms of digital barriers to people with disabilities. While it’s been an enabling technology for some types of disabilities, it’s still a barrier for other types of disabilities. And the history of UI in breaking barriers on disability is a big part of what motivates our group. Nick, did you want to talk a little bit about that?
NICHOLAS HOYT: Sure. I think another part of what Jon has just said is that we are carrying on the work that the founder of DRES—Tim Nugent—started. He was a pioneer in so many ways and was working in a context—the post-World War II era—helping veterans get access to higher education, and that took the form of a transportation system—the first bus system in this country with wheelchair lifts, and wheelchair access to buildings through ramps, and curb cuts, and things like that.
In the Accessible IT Group, we are carrying on that work, but obviously, things have changed. So much of our lives—our work lives and our personal lives—are now online, and we are trying to deal with this new environment in similar ways to what Dr. Nugent was doing. And with digital information technology—as Jon has mentioned, these barriers weren’t recognized immediately. The Accessible IT Group is trying to increase awareness of IT accessibility requirements and, in so doing, provide means—techniques—for reducing or getting rid of these barriers in information technology.
VINCE LARA: Let me ask you—I know the group is ostensibly housed in DRES. Does it work cross-campus? Do you work with other colleges and units?
JON GUNDERSON: Yes, most of our work is with other campus entities, with other Big Ten Universities and also international through our work with the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. We are involved with web standards for accessibility—through the Web Accessibility Initiative—for over 20 years. I’ve been a working group member of the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group. And the AInspector WCAG and FAE tools that we’ve built to help people understand accessibility are built on the foundations of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and the ARIA standards—ARIA stand for Accessible Rich Internet Application standards—for best practices for accessibility.
And one thing that makes our tools different than tools that you might find from other businesses or organizations, for one, is that they’re entirely open-source. And, more importantly, they’re designed to be educational—helping people understand the accessibility requirements, whereas other accessibility tools tend to be what I call “whack-a-mole” tools. You know, tell me where the problem is, and if I have enough time and resources, I’ll just start fixing things until I run out of time or I get everything fixed.
But unfortunately, being able to point to a particular place in the code or on a web page and fix things only addresses about 30% to 40% of accessibility requirements. So, many people, even though they might get zero errors with an automated tool, and they don’t understand the other requirements, may not have addressed the other 50% to 60% of the requirements related to having an accessible and inclusive website. I mean, we talk about accessibility, but it’s really about inclusiveness, making people with disabilities feel included in the Illinois experience.
When people talk about accessibility, it seems to be something like, oh, yeah, I met that criteria of being accessible. But if you don’t really understand the accessibility principles, like I’m satisfied some tool told me I don’t have any errors—but you still don’t know if you’re being inclusive by making the website usable. And maybe Lori could talk a little bit about some of her work with campus web developers or other campus organizations in terms of helping them understand accessibility. Lori?
LORI LANE: I’m involved with the Canvas Accessibility Working Group on campus. My role in that group is to do evaluation and assessment, look over what Canvas offers, and identify any issues that might come up related to accessibility barriers. I also analyze the accessibility checker they offer to see how it functions and notice any accessibility issues that it flags or doesn’t flag.
It’s a way to help the group make accessibility resources available for instructors who are developing courses and students with disabilities who are taking these courses. We help them improve the accessibility of Canvas within that group. That would be one example of a partnership.
Another example might be that I’m also involved with WebCon, the Web Conference planning committee. I’ve been on that committee for the last two years. And when COVID happened, of course, we were caught off guard and forced to cancel the in-person conference that we had been planning at that point. And we made the pivot, as so many did, to an online platform for our conference. And the committee was discussed different ways to make that change.
And one of the first experiences that we had with an online conference—was CVENT. Our committee was interested in talking about things that they liked about the platform, which they saw that seemed very interesting or flashy. I had to keep reminding the group that we had to consider accessibility. That was crucial for planning a successful conference, not just all the bells and whistles.
And so doing this conference online, and what an online conference platform would mean, is that a wider range of attendees with disabilities who might attend online; would not have been able to come in person. And we had to ensure that the platform we selected for the conference was accessible to all of them. And I took that opportunity to educate the rest of the committee on ways to keep that in mind and evaluate for some of those issues.
We ended up going with CVENT, which is the name of the conference platform that we used. And we worked closely with their developers from the CVENT team in making sure that our conference was as accessible as possible. I help other groups and entities across campus be more aware of their product and help improve the accessibility of what they offer and develop.
VINCE LARA: Excellent. Thank you for that answer. Jon, or anyone who wants to answer this, can you explain, broadly, accessibility and its importance?
NICHOLAS HOYT: Jon and Lori, you may want to weigh in as well—but an analogy came to mind for me this morning, and that’s the analogy of when the printing press was invented. In order to make this new technology (at the time) work, people had to understand certain technical aspects of how to produce a book or other printed material. There was typesetting for example, and it involved the amount of ink needed to print each page. Too much ink, and it’s blurred. Not enough ink—it’s not visible.
But just as there were technical issues people had to understand in that era, there’s a similarity with the era of information technology—of digital technologies for information. There are ways that digital information can be made accessible to people regardless of their abilities. And going back to the printing press analogy—somewhere along the line, someone came up with the idea of using Braille. And Braille allowed people who were blind to be able to read the same texts that were being produced in printed format. Unfortunately, there was about a 400 year gap between the invention of the printing press and the invention of Braille.
Today, digital technology gives us the ability to publish something in a format that includes within it the information that someone—just to take an example, someone who is blind—that will help them be able to not only get to the information but to understand its structure—to be able to navigate around and through that document or that information. So hopefully, that’s a helpful analogy.
VINCE LARA: Absolutely. I love that analogy, actually. It helps me understand the basis—how that even arose. Very interesting, Nick. Thank you for explaining that.
LORI LANE: I was listening to what Nick was saying, and I wanted to add another example that I might use: our users with disabilities aren’t able to use a mouse, for example, and they’re dependent on the keyboard. That’s how they’re navigating the web page they’re on. Most of us have no problem using a mouse to access and navigate the internet.
But for people who depend on keyboard navigation only, when they use the Tab key to navigate to active elements on websites as a way to get where they’re trying to go—to the form controls or the search bar. It helps them navigate across a page or through content.
For example, if there aren’t any visual focus cues—something to show where the visual focus is at that moment or on what element it’s highlighted. We need something that clearly defines a link visually, for example, with an underline. If you use a mouse and hover over the element, you’ll see that underline pop up or something that indicates that this is a link. But for a keyboard-only user who can’t hover over with a mouse, they use the keyboard to navigate through, and they do not see any visual focus cues on the page and get stuck because there are no visual focus cues to lead them. They can’t go anywhere or get to the desired destination.
Web developers can put defined styles into their CSS files, for example, background colors, underlines, borders, and text colors—things that identify as a dynamic element. It’s one little CSS change that they can put in, and it dramatically increases the accessibility for someone who uses a keyboard and needs that visual focus. I hope that explains how to make it more accessible.
VINCE LARA: Oh, tremendously. It makes me understand that we’re not doing enough, clearly, on some of our text-only things. And so, absolutely. Thank you for really planting that seed for me.
JON GUNDERSON: I have a story about a blind student. When I first got started working with Illinois students on IT accessibility in the ’90s, I was helping a law student who was blind use LexisNexis. And the web wasn’t being used at that time, but LexisNexis had their own interface, and you could dial-up and get access to law information—almost any information from print materials on a wide variety of topics. And this student—and I think all law students had free access to LexisNexis, I believe this is true even today.
So working with the blind student to help them—they could access the information pretty well since it was primarily the old style character based interfaces, but it took them two to three times longer to access that same information, and there were still problems. It wasn’t ideal. Sometimes, some things weren’t possible.
But, you know, at that time, it cost $200 to $300 per hour to use LexisNexis. I don’t know if that’s still true or not. And so this student– people with disabilities—are used to having to spend more time—work harder—to get the same level of work done for their classes. But when they graduate, and they go try to get a job, a lot of first-year graduates are going to be doing law research—doing research for partners or other lawyers, in at least in the larger law firms.
And now, if it’s taking this student two to three times longer, they will be costing that law firm two to three times more to use that service. And now the law firm says, well, if I hire you, you’re going to be more expensive than other graduates because of the extra time you will be spending on line to do research—I mean, if you’re the top law student from Illinois that might be fine.
But if you’re not the top law student, or maybe towards the bottom of the class, well, maybe you’re going to be too expensive to hire because you’re taking too much time with Lexus/Nexus searches. Or, you know, after the first year and they see your bill is twice as high as other first-year law schools, or maybe more. That’s an economic disincentive to employ someone with a disability. So these are kind of the hidden costs of inaccessibility, and it affects career opportunities.
And to me, at that time, I said, it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s because we design these systems without thinking about accessibility. And just like curb cuts have helped more than just people who use wheelchairs to get into buildings and ramps and things, when we look at technology for accessibility, we’re helping usability for everybody—to use technology better and more efficiently.
VINCE LARA: Oh, fantastic explanations from everyone. I really appreciate that. Lastly, I wanted to talk to you about—Jon, you had mentioned the software extensions, and I wanted to ask you if you could talk more about those and how they can be utilized.
JON GUNDERSON: Well, I think the latest extension we’ve worked on—maybe Nick could explain—but I think it’s a little bit different direction for us. We’ve been mostly focusing on tools to help people analyze websites for accessibility, but this new tool Nick’s been working on is really an assistive technology. It kind of speaks to what Lori Lane was talking about earlier in terms of providing keyboard navigation. So I’ll let Nick talk a little bit more about that project.
NICHOLAS HOYT: OK. Well, I will just begin by saying that the term “extension” generally refers to a web browser extension—something you can just add into the browser, and then its functionality is just there available to you. And of the tools Jon was referring to that do evaluation, probably the tool that we recommend first is a tool called AInspector WCAG, which is a Firefox browser extension. And that will allow you to evaluate—apply many different accessibility rules to the page, have those rules evaluated, and then get that feedback of—are there any aspects of the page that didn’t meet the requirements?
But since we had experience with creating browser extensions, we saw an opportunity with the latest extension, which is called the SkipTo Landmarks & Headings extension. We saw an opportunity for actually creating something that served a dual purpose. And primarily it allows people to navigate a web page by the headings and the landmarks on that page.
So headings have been around for a long time in the world of web development and HTML web pages. They define different sections of content, and they’re hierarchical—they can be of different levels. For example, a level-2 heading might define a major section of a document, and then there might be several level-3 headings under that that define subsections.
On the other hand, landmarks are relatively new. They’re defined by a more recent standard that Jon mentioned—the ARIA standard. Landmarks define regions on a page, which are common regions that users may want to navigate to or skip over. An example is the header region—oftentimes, the same header is there on page after page within a website, containing the website logo and often a site navigation menu. And people that are just using the Tab key to navigate the page starting from the beginning are going to– if they can’t skip over that header—have to tab through many, many links to get beyond it. The SkipTo extension allows a user to skip over the page header and go directly to some other region on the page.
Another very useful landmark is the main landmark. If you put the main content of the page into that region, the SkipTo extension will allow you to skip directly to it. It’s a replacement for the “skip to main content” link, but does not depend on the page actually containing that link.
In summary, the SkipTo extension give people who are using the keyboard—as I mentioned it’s serving a dual purpose–the ability to navigate the page through landmarks and headings very efficiently. And the other way it can be used—for example, a web developer who just wants to spot-check different pages to see if the heading structure makes sense—it’s useful to them as well. Or to anyone that is looking for information on a fairly complex web page—they can get a list of the headings and scroll directly through them, rather than having to scroll through a very long page with lots of visual distractions.
Illinois Paralympians made up a large part of Team USA
Half of the 20 University of Illinois-affiliated Paralympians headed to Tokyo for the 2020 Paralympic Games made an appearance Monday at the Division of Disability Resources & Educational Services for a ceremonial sendoff.
One set of athletes—who were supposed to compete last year before the pandemic changed everyone’s plans—will leave for Japan tomorrow, said Joey Peters, who along with Adam Bleakney coaches the Illini track and field team.
Peters said he, Tatyana McFadden, Daniel Romanchuk, Kelsey LeFevour and Alexa Halko are the ones headed to Tokyo early to get acclimated to the time change and the oppressive heat. “It is supposed to the be (warmest) Olympics and Paralympics ever,” he said.
For McFadden, it will be her sixth Paralympic Games, and in that time, she’s collected 17 medals, including seven gold. This year’s Games will be the second for Romanchuk, who has also won the New York City Marathon as well as Chicago and Boston among his many victories. Romanchuk credited Illini coaches, teammates and family for his success.
“It’s almost impossible to get here without a support system,” he said, adding that the encouragement from friends and fans is “almost indescribable. I would not be here without it.”
The Illini track and field team is represented by Hannah Dederick; Jenna Fesemyer; Halko, Yen Hoang, Eva Houston, Lefevour, Ray Martin, Chelsea McClammer; McFadden, Amanda McCrory, Aaron Pike, Isaiah Rigo, Romanchuk, Susannah Scaroni and Brian Siemann. Men’s basketball includes three Illini: Brian Bell, Ryan Neiswender, and Steve Serio, while the women’s basketball team has Kaitlyn Eaton and Ali Ibanez.
Forber-Pratt’s research is focused on disability identity, inclusion, disability sport, and work related to disability activism
SHS alum Anjali Forber-Pratt named director of the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research
Anjali Forber-Pratt, who earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Department of Speech and Hearing Science in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois, has been named as director of the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR).
Forber-Pratt, most recently an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, is an elite wheelchair racer, having won two bronze medals at the 2008 Summer Paralympic Games in Beijing, China. She also represented Team USA in London at the 2012 Paralympic Games.
Her research is focused on disability identity, inclusion, disability sport, and work related to disability activism. Forber-Pratt holds a B.S. in Speech and Hearing Sciences, an M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology, and a Ph.D. in Human Resource Development, all from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
A two-time Paralympian and medalist in the sport of wheelchair racing, Dr. Forber-Pratt has dedicated her life to helping others recognize their potential. Globally, she is involved with disability advocacy efforts related to access to employment, education and sports. She was honored with the inaugural American Psychological Association Citizen Psychologist Award for Advancing Disability as a Human Rights and Social Justice Issue Award in 2020 and was recognized by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education as a 2018 Emerging Scholar. In 2013, she was awarded the American Association of People with Disabilities’ prestigious Paul G. Hearne Leadership Award, given to emerging leaders within the national disability community. Also in 2013, she was named a Champion of Change by the White House and had an opportunity to participate in a roundtable discussion with President Obama about disability policy issues.
“I am extremely honored and humbled by this appointment as well as the opportunity to serve our country,” Forber-Pratt said in a statement. “From my U of I days, I distinctly remember being explicitly taught that we had an obligation as alums to make the world a better place and to be ambassadors, especially for the broader disability community. Dr. Timothy Nugent taught us that, and my coach Adam Bleakney and others reinforced that every day—it was always more than just our athletic journey or just our academic journey. Many of us have found our own unique ways to embody that—I believe serving as Director of the National Institute of Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research is one way that I will continue to try to serve the broader disability community and educate others. I believe my collective training—with two degrees in Speech & Hearing Sciences as well as my PhD in education that taught me the analytic research skills—it truly is the combination of these degrees and U of I experiences and my own lived experiences as a proud disabled alum that position me well to transition into this role.”
Forber-Pratt served as principal investigator for research projects covering a range of disability issues, including training of special education teachers, experiences of students with disabilities at every education level, and identity development. She has authored 33 peer-reviewed journal articles and is the author or co-author of a number of textbook chapters.
Adam Bleakney and colleagues are pioneering a transformative wheelchair technology designed to increase independence, reduce injury risk, and reframe how society perceives mobility disability.
Illinois’ wheelchair track coach Adam Bleakney leads a cross‑campus team of engineers and designers from AHS and Grainger in testing PURE, the innovative hands‑free robotic wheelchair prototype aimed at “disrupting the wheelchair market” (Photos by Michael Hansen)
As coach of the Illinois wheelchair track team, Adam Bleakney knows about the chronic overuse of shoulders and elbows by his athletes. But as a daily wheelchair user himself, he also knows about the challenges of navigating life.
So Bleakney and his colleagues from Disability Resources and Educational Services, as well as cross-campus collaborators from the Grainger College of Engineering, and the College of Fine + Applied Arts, embarked on a plan to disrupt the wheelchair market.
“We wanted to design something that would break the mode of traditional wheelchairs, which has been essentially a chair supported between two large drive wheels with two casters, and has not changed since the first patents awarded in the 1860s,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering in the Grainger College of Engineering and the principal investigator on a project that recently received a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation under the National Robotics Initiative program to develop a wheelchair that will provide individuals with a physical disability a new and novel mode of mobility.
The project, called PURE (Personalized, Unique Rolling Experience) offers users hands-free movement using an interactive and adaptive robot that is uniquely personalized for each user.
Hsiao-Wecksler said the project was started in 2018 in response to the call for “radical improvements in the mobility and independence of people with lower-limb paralysis through smarter assistive technology” by the Toyota Mobility Unlimited Challenge.
Bleakney had worked with Toyota on a previous project, so he was intrigued by the opportunity, and he spoke with then-DRES director Dr. Pat Malik, whose husband, Ron, is a daily wheelchair user.
“The intent was to achieve an interdisciplinary effort, to combine the tradition and knowledge we have at DRES and AHS as leaders in disability access with the incredible resources that exist across campus,” he said.
“And Pat, Jeannette Elliott, Arielle Rausin, and I each bring a unique and personal disability experience perspective to the project. Pat, who’s married to a daily wheelchair user; Jeanette, who in addition to being the physical therapist at DRES uses a prosthesis and manual wheelchair; and Arielle and me as daily wheelchair users.”
Hsiao-Wecksler was asked to join the team since she had been working on hardware design of devices to assist people with disabilities and also wheelchair technology.
“I have worked on both wheelchair propulsion biomechanics with (KCH faculty) Jake Sosnoff and Ian Rice, and wheelchair wheel development with IntelliWheels, Inc., which was a local start-up that I, Jake Sosnoff, and our graduate students created.”
Three mechanical engineering graduate students—Chenzhang Xiao, Yinan Pei, and Yu Chen—worked on PURE prototypes, and Dr. William (Bob) Norris of Grainger, of Grainger (ISE faculty) who has expertise in control of autonomous vehicles and robots, was brought on as a co-PI. Dr. João Ramos, also of Grainger (MechSE faculty) and with experience with design and control of robotic devices, was added for the NSF proposal.
Illinois’ project reached the top 10 out of 80 applications for the Toyota Challenge. Bleakney and project co-PI Dr. Deana McDonagh of FAA represented the team in London for the competition, but only the top five submissions were funded.
Illinois’ team was unbowed and continued to move ahead, knowing it had a good idea.
“Without question everyone on the team recognized the value of the project and the need to look for funding opportunities to continue working on it,” Bleakney said.
“The traditional manual wheelchair needs to be reimagined,” McDonagh added.
Although Bleakney works with some of the best wheelchair athletes in the country, including multi-marathon winner Daniel Romanchuk, he knows there is a broader application for PURE.
“It’s (for) all daily wheelchair users and other individuals with a lower limb mobility impairment. So we do envision that it would be a mobility device that can be used by both daily wheelchair users and others that don’t necessarily always use a wheelchair but would perhaps use some other some other form of accessible mobility in certain situations.”
The device’s name—PURE—came about as a result of a team meeting, Hsiao-Wecksler said.
“We wanted to express the organic and pure nature of using lean-to-steer technology to propel the device, rather than requiring constant occupation of the hands such as with a manual wheelchair,” she said. “This mobility device will utilize personalized driving calibration to accommodate different trunk function abilities and custom seating of each user. The design is a uniquely different mode of rolling instead of the traditional wheelchair with two drive wheels and castors. And it will be a wonderful mobility experience for the user.”
The traditional manual wheelchair needs to be reimagined.
Deana McDonagh
Professor of Industrial Design in the School of Art + Design
The PURE design plan describes it as “discreet,” which McDonagh said refers to “seeing the person before the chair—which translates to seeing the person before the disability.”
Hsiao-Wecksler added that PURE’s footprint is “smaller than a manual wheelchair’s, being no larger than the user’s body dimensions while seated, providing access to smaller spaces such as inaccessible public restroom stalls.”
Bleakney also stressed PURE’s ability to address long-term health and wellness and safety.
“We look at how can we decrease acute injuries that may occur from falling,” he said.“And we wanted to mitigate that risk, but also mitigate the risk posed to the shoulders from pushing a wheelchair around on a daily basis.”
And McDonagh said, “health is not just the absence of disease. Health is connected with one’s sense of independence, mobility and ability to live the life you need to live. This device will enable the user to traverse a more diverse terrain while holding a coffee in one hand! Or holding the hand of a loved one. We are blending the functional with the emotional needs of real people.”
A prototype of PURE was developed for the Toyota Challenge in 2018, but since it had rather inexpensive components, it could only support a payload of 25 pounds. A second-generation prototype is in the works, one that can support a rider up to 250 pounds and operate on level flooring.
Thanks to the NSF grant, plans are in the works for more development of the second-gen device and then a third-generation chair with more advanced control. Eventually, the researchers see commercial opportunities, and recently submitted an application to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
“We think the value is transformative enough that it can be used by not just daily wheelchair users, but also by a broader audience,” Bleakney said. “Envision being at Disney World. And instead of hundreds of three-wheeled scooters being driven around by folks needing mobility assistance, PURE is being used and providing a much more inclusive and fulfilling experience. So I think it has a fairly broad application to a lot of different individuals who would benefit from it.”
