Directory

Bern Jordan

J. Bern Jordan

Assistant Research Scientist
jbjordan@umd.edu
301-405-5413
 Hornbake Building (South Wing), Room 2117-E

Bern Jordan, Ph.D. has been working in the field of accessibility of information and communications technology for over 20 years with degrees in biomedical engineering. He is interested in accessibility and its practical applications—and he works to improve both the technology side and the standards and practice around accessibility. His work has included the development of techniques for cross-disability access to self-service transaction machines, kiosks, and other public ICT, the development of hands-on accessibility training workshops, and research into automatic user interface generation and adaptation. Dr. Jordan has worked with various US agencies and organizations on accessibility, including the US Access Board, US National Library Service, US Capitol Visitors Center, Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, FDIC, and NIST. He was appointed to the 2020-2022 Disability Advisory Committee of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Dr. Jordan has also contributed to accessibility standards development and rulemaking from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), IEEE, Underwriters Laboratories, US Department of Transportation, and US Access Board. He has 10 patents related to access for kiosks and touchscreens and has worked with over a dozen companies large and small on making their products and services more accessible. Recently, he has been consulting on the accessibility of at-home tests, apps, and instructions for COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases for the RADx Tech initiative of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), National Institutes of Health (NIH). He was also the User Experience lead on the 5-year development of open-source, auto-personalization software for people with disabilities.