Hello, I'm DJ!

I am an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, also affiliated with the School of Information and Michigan Medicine. I build and study human-AI systems for accessibility across three research pillars:

1. AI for Sound Accessibility: How can AI make sound, speech, and noisy environments more accessible? We build systems for sound awareness, acoustic control, and communication access, helping deaf and hard-of-hearing people, people with noise sensitivity, and clinicians working in high-noise environments better understand and manage sound. Examples include SoundWatch, Sona, and emerging clinical auditory systems. See our lab website for a full publication list.

2. Accessible AI for the Future of Work: How can AI support disabled workers as workplaces become more automated and data-driven? We study how workplace AI and task-mining systems can identify barriers, support accommodations, and give disabled workers more agency over how their labor is understood, evaluated, and redesigned.

3. Reliability in Real-World Accessible AI: How can AI accessibility systems remain reliable and understandable in everyday use? We study how accessible AI can support continuity, repair, and trust, rather than simply optimizing for accuracy at isolated moments.

This research has translated into real-world systems used at scale. SoundWatch, our smartwatch app for sound recognition, has been downloaded more than 4,000 times. Our indoor navigation system has supported more than 100,000 interactions for blind and low-vision museum visitors in India. Our clinical communication tools are being deployed at Michigan Medicine. Our work has also contributed to a built-in accessibility feature available on all iPhones and informed real-time captioning systems at Google.

I completed my PhD at the University of Washington and my MS at the MIT Media Lab, and have worked at Microsoft Research, Google, and Apple. My research is generously supported by Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Meta, Samsung, NIH, and William Demant and Oberkotter Foundations. My work has also been recognized with the SIGCHI Outstanding Dissertation Award (2023), the Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant (2021), and the CRA–Microsoft Trustworthy AI Fellowship (2025).

For more information, see my CV, lab website, or Google Scholar page, or contact me at profdj [at] umich [dot] edu.