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Grecia, a doctoral researcher in the School of Engineering and Informatics, was the postgraduate researcher who won first prize in this year’s Early Career Researcher Dragon’s Den. The competition offers an opportunity to bid for research funding and gain experience in bid-writing and pitching to a non-specialist audience. Grecia’s project aims to improve accessibility to graphical information for people with visual impairment – find out more:

My project is about giving fair access to graphical information for people with visual impairment. There is an assumption that diagrams used by sighted people can be used by people with visual impairment too, but this is not the case. So, for this project, we want to develop research-based guidelines for creating tactile diagrams that educators can easily use, and engage with external partners and collaborators, such as teachers, publishers and examination boards, to help us put our research findings into practice.

This project is an example of my broader work, which is about representing information using knowledge of cognitive science. Other projects I am involved in include using diagrams for interactive learning environments, investigating techniques for evaluating an individual’s knowledge, and creating an AI tool that personalises diagrams according to the topic and the individual.

I hope our easy-to-follow guidelines brings actual change to the tactile materials used in school examinations in the UK so they can be used by students and teachers in their everyday work at schools.

One of my favourite things at Sussex is my research group. I feel very lucky to have such hard-working, fun, interesting, and reliable colleagues and friends.  But, if I must choose a place, then I would choose any green area next to a pond – it is great to find these little pockets of peace and quiet within campus.

Outside of work I love reading and hiking. I enjoy reading books that help me learn about other cultures, and I have recently acquired a taste for graphic novels. However, I recently became a mom, so time is tight. This basically means that I have new favourite activities, such as having days out with the family and maintaining the nature area in our allotment – I am all about supporting insects, amphibians and saving the bees!

I am looking forward to working with external partners and having the chance to see how our research is applied in the ‘real world’ and across different topics, including physics, chemistry, and biology.  We are also planning to apply for a larger grant for this research, so I hope that the work we do serves as a foundation and gives us a better chance of winning that kind of funding application.