Members

The Readability Consortium’s industry and nonprofit full member board steers our collaborative research, with guidance from affiliate members, research associates, and our growing community.

Interested? Join us in bringing readability to all.

Contributors

Our University of Central Florida (UCF) Research Team works directly with member individual contributors to support our mission and execute on identified priorities.

Senior Researcher

Nilsu Atilgan, PhD

Nilsu is a senior researcher in The Readability Consortium. She is trained as a vision scientist, received her PhD in cognitive and brain sciences at the University of Minnesota and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on underlying mechanisms of peripheral visual perception and attention, reading, and dyslexia. She has many years of experience studying readability, during her PhD and internship at Meta Reality Labs, ranging from optimizing reading parameters in low vision population to improving text legibility in AR/VR systems. Nilsu leads the research efforts within TRC in the topics of Psychophysics of Variable Typography and Information Design for the Individual.

Graduate Student Researcher, University of Northern Colorado

Caterina Azzarello

Caterina Belle Azzarello has a M.A. in educational psychology from the University of Northern Colorado, where she is currently studying for her doctoral program. Currently, she is working full time as a graduate student researcher for a few different labs. Her main topics of study are focused in human factors (i.e. eye tracking, readability), cognitive science (i.e. self-efficacy, math anxiety) and DEI-based research methods (i.e. Critical Race Theory, demographic reviews). Recent publications have been focused on the interconnection between self-efficacy and mathematics and qualitative-based research methods.

SME, Typography for Good, UCF

Samuel Berlow

As a school board president, father, coach, and CEO, Berlow has seen how information design can affect the transfer of information. Researching what parameters influence speed and comprehension has been an interest to Sam ever since his children started to read. In order to help his children read more efficiently, he would print out reading assignments in different sizes and in different fonts to see if it would help his kids.

Educational Content Writer

Catherine Bordeau

Catherine is a content developer and instructional designer focused on readability and language learning in education.

Research Scientist, Adobe

Zoya Bylinskii, PhD

Zoya is a Research Scientist in the Creative Intelligence Lab at Adobe Research (in Cambridge, MA) and an Associate of the Institute of Applied Computational Science at Harvard University. Zoya received her Computer Science Ph.D. and M.Sc. from MIT in 2018 and 2015, respectively. Zoya works at the interface of human perception & cognition, computer vision, and human-computer interaction. She is leading the readability research effort from within Adobe Research and is actively hiring interns in this space.

Lead, Applied Research, UCF

Steven Clapp, PhD

Steven Clapp, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar in The Readability Consortium at the University of Central Florida. He is trained as a human-centered process design leader and was a management consultant in this regard for many years at some of North America’s top financial services firms and internet-based B2B companies. Steve was also a visiting professor of operations management and management science at the University of North Florida’s Coggin College of Business. Steve’s academic research focuses on creating holistic work environments that lead to increased employee well-being and productivity.

Lead Operations Manager, Google

Dave Crossland

Dave is lead operations manager for Google Fonts, and has commissioned thousands of fonts from hundreds of designers for dozens of writing systems, plus font editors, educational resources and live events. The way type design combines visual culture, language, technology, business, history – and its ubiquity – make this field something he finds endlessly fascinating.

Co-founder, Readability Matters

Kathy Crowley

Kathy brought her high-tech and non-profit experience to found Readability Matters, a Tech-for-Good non-profit focused on shifting reading outcomes for adults and children. Previously, Kathy held global technology leadership roles at Hewlett Packard Company and served on the boards of several international non-profits, including a $2.2M Gates-funded cross-organizational program dedicated to advancing women’s economic empowerment.

Research Scientist, UCF

Stephanie Day, PhD

Stephanie is the Associate Director of the Readability Consortium and a research scientist at the University of Central Florida. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at Florida State University. Her research centers on examining links between children’s learning difficulties, individual differences, the classroom environment, and achievement. Stephanie has over 18 years of experience managing large-scale research studies focused on building technology to improve literacy outcomes for students in elementary school and is leading the TRC readability education research in K-12 populations. She also leads research evaluating the use of Generative AI in education.

SME, Dobres Consulting, UCF

Jonathan Dobres, PhD

Jon’s background in advanced data analytics and scientific communication and extensive experience investigating a wide array of user experience issues includes past work investigating the impact of typographic design. Passionate about data science and statistical analysis, Dr. Dobres often combines large, disparate data sources into a cohesive story or developing custom software tools for analytical purposes. His publication record includes high quality research in the fields of visual perception, interface design, and related areas.

Laboratory Associate, UCF

Amy E. Giroux

Amy is a laboratory associate at the University of Central Florida focusing on readability in education and extended reality.

Co-founder, Readability Matters

Marjorie Jordan

Marjorie is a global high-tech industry leader with a track record of developing multi-disciplinary teams to deliver on high-impact strategic priorities. Her interest in the intersection of technology and reading led her to found Readability Matters, a tech-for-good non-profit engaging cross-sector organizations to deliver personalized reading environments, empowering everyone everywhere to achieve more.

Software Developer

Mert Küçük

Mert is a software developer in the Readability Consortium. He is an experimental psychologist and a self-taught software developer with an ongoing PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Bosphorus University. His research career started as a MSc student at Izmir University of Economics by examining visual perception and brain electrophysiology in aging. Deciding to open-up his skills to the world as a freelancer, he has helped research groups develop their research design, setup experimental software and hardware, and devise analytical methods. Mert is responsible for developing tools and online experiments within TRC.

Graduate Research Assistant, UCF

Md Mamunur Rashid

Rashid is a PhD Student at the University of Central Florida applying AI and ML to readability and neuro-ergonomics for health care systems.

Lead UX Researcher, Google

Hilary Palmén, PhD

Hilary (she/her) is the Lead User Experience Researcher on the Google Fonts team. Hilary has worked at Google for 3 years and recently joined the Google Fonts team to help improve global literacy. Hilary’s previous roles have included Design Director for Honeywell’s Build Solutions, Lead Researcher in Microsoft, and Higher Scientist in the UK Ministry of Defence.

Test Implementation Assistant, University of Glasgow

Veronica Penkova, MSc

Veronica Penkova is a graduate student at the University of Glasgow who assists with readability test implementation in Pavlovia, Prolific, and Qualtrics. She is interested in readability in children and implementing accessibility user research.

Faculty, UCF

Ben D. Sawyer, PhD

Ben (he/his) is Director of The Readability Consortium and The Virtual Readability Laboratory, where he leads teams rethinking how information flows from human to machine, and back. He is Faculty at UCF in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems within the College of Computer Engineering and Computer Science, and The Institute for Simulation and Training. His previous positions include MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics, and Air Force Research Laboratory 711th Human Performance Wing. More at bendsawyer.com.

Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Adobe

Rick Treitman

Rick is currently Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Document Cloud – specializing in Education. Rick’s work as EIR involves early-stage development of tools and solutions for Adobe’s customers. Current projects include readability controls in Acrobat, working with non-profits such as Readability Matters, and establishing and working closely with the Virtual Readability Lab at the University of Central Florida.

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