At NYU Langone’s Rusk Rehabilitation, John-Ross (J.R.) Rizzo, MD, MSCI, leads the Rehabilitation Engineering Alliance and Center Transforming Low Vision (REACTIV) laboratory, where his research focuses on assistive technology designed to help people who are visually impaired.

The REACTIV laboratory serves people who are legally blind or have low vision and civil servants who transiently have their visual system incapacitated, such as military personnel conducting night operatives, firefighters who have to navigate through smoke-filled buildings, and police officers who are left vulnerable in low-light conditions.

Our team focuses on advanced wearables for the sensory deprived (permanent or transient) and benefits from Dr. Rizzo’s own personal experiences with vision loss. The laboratory’s central hypothesis is that wearables support spatial cognition in visually impaired populations, augmenting personal freedom and agency, and promoting health and wellbeing. Our long-term goal is to develop wearables with a suite of tailorable, forward compatible microservices that enable functional independence for the visually impaired.

People who are visually impaired face mobility restrictions because of inaccessible environments. Even in structured settings, people with low vision may still have trouble navigating efficiently and safely because of hallway and threshold ambiguity. Dr. Rizzo and his team are working to take assistive technology to the next level.

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