Dr. Nicholas Giudice received his Ph.D. in the Cognitive and Brain Sciences program in the Department of Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 2004 and  worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Psychological and Brain Sciences program in the Psychology Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 2005-2008. Since Fall of 2008, he has worked at the University of Maine, where he is currently an associate professor of spatial informatics in the School of Computing and Information Science, with joint appointments in the University of Maine’s Psychology Department and Intermedia program. He directs the VEMI lab, which houses Maine’s only research facility combining a fully immersive virtual reality (VR) installation with augmented reality (AR) technologies in an integrated research and development environment. Research in his lab uses a combination of behavioral experiments and usability studies to investigate human spatial cognition with and without vision, to determine the optimal information requirements for the design of multimodal interfaces, and as a testbed for evaluation and usability research for navigational and information access technologies for blind and low-vision users.

Dr. Giudice is himself congenitally blind and has a long history of both designing and using assistive technology for navigation. He has  authored or co-authored over 130 scientific publications relating to the study and design of multimodal access technology for blind and visually impaired people, collaborated on over $8 million in research grants in this field from NIH, NSF, and NIDRR, and advised over 50 students. Dr. Giudice has also served as Chair / co-chair of 9 conferences / workshops, participated on 11 conference / workshop program committees, and is a current board member on 2 other blindness-related organizations (ACB of Maine and MOBALE) in addition to The Iris Network. As a blind educator, researcher, and expert in assistive technology, he brings a wealth of first-hand knowledge and real-world experience to The Iris Network’s board and to the clients we serve.