Rachel Adler
Associate Professor
PhD, Computer Science, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Other professional appointments
- Associate Member, Cancer Center at Illinois
- Faculty Affiliate, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
- Faculty Affiliate, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
- Faculty Affiliate, Illinois Informatics
Research focus
Biography
Rachel Adler is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She previously served as an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Northeastern Illinois University. Adler's research interests are in human-computer interaction, accessibility, and computer science education. She is particularly interested in designing applications for and with people with disabilities. Some of her recent projects include co-designing a mobile health application to empower cancer survivors with disabilities, co-designing a mobile health peer navigator intervention for people with disabilities, and creating simulation games to teach students about accessible design. Her research has been funded through the National Institutes of Health; National Science Foundation; National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research; and the U.S. Department of Education. She holds a PhD in computer science from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Courses currently teaching
Publications & Papers
Winters, C. A., Marshall, H. K., Victorson, D. E., Adler, R. F. & Magasi, S. (2023). Does the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) Capture the Complex Experiences of Cancer Survivors? A Mixed Methods Approach, Occupational Therapy In Health Care, 49(1).
Adler, R. F. and Kletenik, D. (2023). Accessibility for All: Introducing IT Accessibility in Postsecondary Computer Science Programs for K-12 Teachers. Practice brief. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability (JPED), 36(1), 103-108.
Kletenik, D. and Adler, R. F. (2023). Who Wins: A Comparison of Accessibility Simulation Games vs. Classroom Modules. In The 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE'23), (pp. 214-220).
Adler, R. F., Paley, A., Li Zhao, A., Pack, H., Servantez, S., Pah, A. R., Hammond, K., SCALES OKN Consortium. (2023). A User-Centered Approach to Developing an AI System Analyzing U.S. Federal Court Data. Artificial Intelligence and Law, 31, 547-570.
Adler, R. F., Hibdon, J., Kim, H., Mayle, S., Pines, B., and Srinivas, S. (2023). Assessing Computational Thinking across a STEM Curriculum for Pre-Service Teachers. Education and Information Technologies, 28, 8051-8073.
Adler R. F. Morales P., Sotelo J., Magasi S. (2022). Developing an mHealth App for Empowering Cancer Survivors with Disabilities: Co-Design Study. JMIR Formative Research, 6(7), e37706.
Kletenik, D. and Adler, R. F. (2022). Let's Play: Increasing Accessibility Awareness and Empathy Through Games. In The 53nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE'22), (pp. 182-188).
Paley, A., Li Zhao, A., Pack, H., Servantez, S., Adler, R. F., Sterbentz, M., Pah, A., Schwartz, D., Barrie, C., Einarssan, A., and Hammond, K. (2021). From Data to Information: Automating Data Science to Explore the U.S. Court System. In The 18th International Conference of Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2021), (pp. 119-128). *Best Innovative Application Paper Award
Adler, R. F. and Beck, K. (2020). Developing an Introductory Computer Science Course for Pre-service Teachers. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 28(3), 519-541.
Iacobelli, F., Adler, R. F., Buitrago, D., Buscemi, J., Corden, M. E., Perez-Tamayo, A., Penedo, F. J., Rodriguez, M., Yanez, B. R. (2018). Designing an mHealth application to bridge health disparities in Latina breast cancer survivors: a community-supported design approach. Design for Health, 2(1), 58-76.
Presentations
Kletenik, D. and Adler, R. F. Designing for All: Teaching Accessibility through Games. CUNY Games Conference, January 2023.
Magasi, S. and Adler, R. F. "Developing mHealth tools to support Cancer Survivors with Known Disabilities," Invited talk at Step-up Breast Cancer Awareness Virtual Conference, E-Center for Women's Cancers and Maternal Health, Johannesburg, South Africa, October 2022.
Adler, R. F., Friedman, D., Victorson, D. and Magasi, S. Co-Design Processes for the Development of mRehabilitation (mRehab) Interventions For and With People with Disabilities. American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine 2022 Annual Conference, November 2022.
Sotelo, J., Morales, P. H., Baez, K., Delgado, M., Teolis, B., Magasi, S., and Adler, R. F. Heuristic Evaluation of an mHealth Prototype for Cancer Survivors with Disabilities. Poster at the 2022 SACNAS National Diversity in STEM Conference, October 2022. *Outstanding Undergraduate Presentation Award
Presenter at the Integrating Accessibility and Disability into the Computing Curriculum Pre-symposium event at SIGCSE 2022 (with D. Kletenik), March 2022.
Sotelo, J., Morales, P. H., Dimayuga, L., Teolis, B., Magasi, S., and Adler, R. F. Developing a Prototype of a Self-Management Application to Empower Cancer Survivors with Disabilities. Poster at the 2021 SACNAS National Diversity in STEM Conference (Virtual), October 2021. *Outstanding Undergraduate Presentation Award
Morales, P. H., Sotelo, J., Dimayuga, L., Teolis, B., Magasi, S., and Adler, R. F. Applying a User-Centered Co-Design Approach to Discover the Challenges of Cancer Survivors with Disabilities. Poster at the 2021 SACNAS National Diversity in STEM Conference (Virtual), October 2021.
Magasi S., Victorson D., Adler R., and Hamlish T. WeCanManage: Collaborative user-centered design of a self-management tool for cancer survivors with disabilities. 2nd Council of Occupational Therapists for the European Countries – European Network of Occupational Therapy in Higher Education (COTEC-ENOTHE) Congress (Virtual). September 2021.
Magasi, S. and Adler, R. F. "WeCan… - Developing mHealth tools to support Cancer Survivors with Known Disabilities," Invited talk at the University of Illinois Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention and Control (CPC) Program Meeting, March 2021.
Adler, R. F. "Computer Science Learning for Pre-Service and In-Service STEM Teachers," Invited talk at Northwestern University’s Computer Sciences and Learning Sciences Colloquium, Evanston, IL, March 2020.