The Nakamura Disability Lab @ CAL

The Nakamura Disability Lab @ Cal

December 2, 2019

A Well Kept Secret

The Nakamura Disability Lab is one of UC Berkeley’s well-kept secrets tucked away inside one end of the Hearst Annex complex. With its mission of “Making Better Crips,” the lab has been operational since 2018 and led by Prof. Karen Nakamura who is the endowed chair for Disability Studies and Professor of Anthropology.

URAPers listen to Prof. Karen Nakamura.
URAPers listen to Prof. Karen Nakamura.
Prof. Karen Nakamura at the lab
Prof. Karen Nakamura at the lab

The group of student URAPers (Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program) at the lab include lab manager Nate Tilton and URAP researchers Olivia Cheng, Gloria Kunder, Irlanda Gonzalez, Josh Lavine, Chris Moreno, Ewan Seo, Mimi Shalf, Hari Srinivasan, Enrico Cruvinel, Christian Leycam, and Kristie Diep.

Current Teams at Work

● Team Thumbless
● Team Pi^3 (Sense-Able Computing Input)
● Team Apple Pi (Sense-Able Computing Output)
● Team Propaganda.

Karen's service dog, Momo, a grey and white beagle.
Karen’s service dog, Momo, a grey and white beagle.

Low-Cost Technology Solutions

An important focus for the lab has also been finding low-cost technology solutions for people disabilities.

Community members and other guest speakers have also attended the weekly Wednesday meetings to speak on the work they were doing or add their input to what the lab was doing.