Skip to Navigation Skip to Main Content Skip to Footer
Gallaudet Logo
  • Visit
  • Apply
  • Give
  • Request Info
    • KDES (PK-8)
    • MSSD (9-12)
  • Quick Links
    • Youth
    • Current Students
    • Staff & Faculty
    • Parents
    • Alumni
    • Athletics
    • Learn ASL
    • GOAL (Cont. Ed.)
    • Bison Shop
Science, Technology, Accessibility, Mathematics, and Public Health
  • Overview
  • Areas of Study
    • Accessible Human-Centered Computing and Policy (AHCP)
    • Data Science
    • Biology
    • Chemistry
    • Information Technology
    • Mathematics
    • Public Health
    • Educational Neuroscience
  • Degrees
  • Contact
News

Gallaudet
Stories

AHCP program’s power showcased at inaugural DeafTech Conference
Thirteen Gallaudet students win Gilman Scholarships in record application year 
Seven distinguished faculty members receive emeritus honors for years of scholarship and service
Commencement 2026: Celebrating the next generation of leaders
Wadha Alshammari has big dreams for deaf education in Saudi Arabia
From partying to a PhD: keeping up with Reggie Bess

Main Menu

  • University Profile
  • Our Campus
  • History
  • Misson & Vision

    • Gallaudet Promise
    • Annual Report of Achievements (ARA)
    • Accreditation
  • President & Leadership
  • PK-12 & Outreach
  • Undergraduate Admissions
  • Graduate Admissions
  • Affordability & Price
  • Financial Aid
  • Professional Studies & Certificate Programs
  • English Language Institute
  • International
  • Visit & Tour
  • Youth Programs
  • Academic Programs
  • Undergraduate
  • Graduate
  • GOAL (Continuing Education)
  • Honors Program
  • ASL @ Gallaudet
  • Study Abroad
  • Housing & Dining
  • Student Groups & Activities
  • New & Emerging Signers
  • Fitness & Recreation

    • Athletics
    • Esports
  • Washington DC
  • School Spirit and Traditions
  • Student Services
News & Events
  • Career Preparedness
  • Alumni
  • Gallaudet Opportunities for Advancement and Learning (GOAL)
Research and Innovation
Visit Apply Give Request Info
Gallaudet Athletics (opens in new window)
Clerc Center
  • Youth
  • Current Students
  • Staff & Faculty
  • Parents
  • Alumni
  • Learn ASL
  • GOAL

Search

Directories

  • Personnel
  • Degrees
  • Areas of Study
  • Courses
  • Events

Popular Keywords

  • Tuition
  • Housing
  • Academic
  • Visit
  • Financial Aid
  • My Account
  • Registrar
  • Employment
  • Alumni
  • Athletics
  • Library
  • Commencement
  • News
  • Events
  • Homecoming
  • Student Life

Tools & Resources

Bison Shop Calendar Bus Shuttle E-mail MyGU Library Gallaudet Today Maps & Directions Workday Blackboard

A-Z Index

  • Academic & Career Success
  • Academic Affairs
  • Access Control
  • Alumni Association
  • Alumni Relations
  • Archives
  • Arts and Humanities
  • ASL and English Bilingualism
  • ASL Connect
  • Athletics & Intramurals
  • Belonging & Engagement
  • Buff and Blue Media
  • Campus Design and Facilities
  • Campus Events
  • Campus Services
  • Civic Leadership, Business and Social Change
  • Counseling and Psychological Services
  • Curriculum, Outreach, Resources, and Effectiveness
  • Deaf Way Film Festival
  • Dean of the Faculty
  • Development Office
  • Education Abroad and International Fellowships
  • Enrollment and Communications
  • Finance
  • Financial Aid
  • Gallaudet Opportunities for Advancement and Learning
  • Gallaudet Press
  • Graduate Admissions
  • Graduate School
  • Graduate Student Association
  • Hearing and Speech Center
  • Human Resources
  • Human Services and Sciences
  • Institutional Advancement
  • Institutional Effectiveness and Certification
  • Institutional Research
  • Institutional Review Board
  • International Relations
  • Interpreting Services
  • Kendall Demonstration Elementary School
  • Language, Education, and Culture
  • Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center
  • Maguire Welcome Center
  • Model Secondary School for the Deaf
  • Multicultural Student Programs
  • National Deaf Life Museum
  • Office for Career Success
  • Office of Arts, Culture, and Experience
  • Office of International Affairs
  • Office of Research and Innovation
  • Office of the General Counsel
  • Office of the President
  • Office of the Registrar
  • Operations
  • Psychology Clinic
  • Public Safety
  • Real Estate
  • Residence Life and Housing
  • Science, Technology, Accessibility, Mathematics, and Public Health
  • Strategic Planning & Integration
  • Strategic Sourcing
  • Student Accountability & Restorative Practices (SARP)
  • Student Affairs
  • Student Body Government
  • Student Center Programs and Services
  • Student Engagement and Leadership
  • Student Financial Services
  • Technology Services
  • Undergraduate Admissions
  • University Communications
  • University Library
  • Youth Programs
Jump to a Section

Overview

Requirements

Opportunities

Program Outcomes

Accreditation

Job Outlook

News

Faculty

FAQs

Contact

GU

 / 

Accessible Human-Centered C...

 / 

M.S. in Accessible Human-Centered Computing and...

Accessible Human-Centered Computing and Policy (AHCP)

M.S. in Accessible Human-Centered Computing and Policy

Email Us

Overview

The Master of Science in Accessible Human-Centered Computing and Policy is designed for deaf, hard of hearing and hearing individuals seeking specialized academic training in designing, evaluating, and implementing effective, evidence-based accessible design and evaluation strategies and messages to address the accessibility needs of diverse audiences.

Students will also gain knowledge of accessible research design and methods. Graduates of the program will be prepared for a variety of positions, including those in accessibility or information technology in industry, federal agencies, and non-profit organizations.

The program is an international resource for research, innovation and outreach related to deaf and hard of hearing people and provides an environment in which research can grow, develop, and improve the lives and knowledge of all deaf and hard of hearing people worldwide.

Admissions Requirements

To be admitted to the program, applicants must:

Completion of a bachelor’s degree, including, but not limited to computer science, information technology, human-computer interaction, audiology, communication studies, government affairs, psychology, and social work. Relevant work experience in the field of accessible technology will be considered in lieu of a bachelor’s degree in the above fields (Note: this is not waiving a bachelor’s degree requirement. It is only considering other undergraduate majors who have relevant work experience in the field).

Complete and submit a program application by the application deadline date, that includes:

  • Two letters of recommendation
  • A letter of interest with a vision statement
  • Approval by the AHCP program, who will review the application to determine if the student shows high promise of success in the program.

Requirements for Degree Completion

  • Completion of 36 credits required by the program, including 33 units of course work and 3 units of the culminating Graduate Project.
  • All course work in the student’s graduate program must be completed with a B or better while maintaining an overall GPA of 3.0 or higher.
  • Graduate students are required to be enrolled the semester in which their degree is to be awarded.

Courses & Requirements

Summary of Requirements

Year 1

This course examines the practical and theoretical issues of how diverse people interact with personal devices. Students are introduced to an overview of accessible and user-centered design principles and tools that help them develop effective and efficient user interfaces in subsequent courses and in their careers. Topics include HCI history, accessibility, cognitive psychology, and styles assessment, user analysis, task analysis, interaction design, prototyping, and human-centered evaluation.
Credits: 3
Distribution: Graduate
The course explores the impact of hearing differences on communication, education, participation, and quality of life. A special emphasis is placed on the diversity of communication needs and choices among deaf and hard of hearing people. Then it will examine how communication accessibility is achieved through study of current and emerging technology, trends in industry, public policies, and the government agencies that enforce these policies. Access to telecommunications (including Internet and wireless communications, relay services, etc.), information, video media, emergency services, public accommodations, employment, education, and other contexts are included.
Credits: 3
Distribution: Graduate
This course covers in depth WCAG (Global), Section 508 (US) and EN 301 549 (EU) from an applied and practical point of view. Students will be introduced to basic approaches on how to apply these standards to widely used information technologies such as web accessibility, PDF accessibility and epub3 to provide access to multimedia such as image or audio.
Credits: 3
Distribution: Graduate, Masters
This course covers in depth widely used standards such as WCAG, Section 508 (US) and EN 301 549 (EU) from an applied and practical point of view. Students will learn how to apply these standards to emerging accessibility fields, such as Extended Reality (XR) accessibility, and to apply these to the software ecosystem and toolchains for documents in Word, PDF and multimedia.
Credits: 3
Requisites:

AHC 605

Distribution: Graduate, Masters

This is a graduate-level introduction to statistics for human-computer interaction. Topics include principles of inferential statistics, hypothesis testing, and experimental design; data handling, description, and visualization; probability; confidence intervals and t-tests; chi-square test, analysis of variance, and multiple comparisons; and simple linear regression. Students will learn to apply these tools to real-world data using R, and how to interpret and communicate the results of their analyses. No prior statistics or programming knowledge is required.

Credits: 3
Distribution: Graduate, In-person, Masters
Special topics courses address subject matter or content not already included in the existing curriculum. Offered on a temporary basis, special topics may evaluate the demand for a new course or area of study or may cover areas of specific interest.
Credits: 1-3
Requisites:

permission of the instructor

Distribution: Graduate

Year 2

This course will provide an overview of accessible communication devices, ranging from auditory, visual, and vibrotactile receptive communication modalities designed to meet the needs of deaf and hard of hearing individuals as well as other populations, at home, in the workplace, in educational settings, and for recreational purposes. Communication technologies include systems to facilitate (1) face-to-face communication, (2) the reception of media, (3) telephone reception, and (4) the awareness of environmental sounds. Review and practice with actual volunteer clients of the needs assessment, selection, and verification process will be provided in two hands-on one-day workshops in the Gallaudet Assistive Devices Demonstration Center.
Credits: 3
Distribution: Graduate
This course will provide an overview of accessible information devices, ranging from auditory and visual information modalities designed to meet the needs of deaf and hard of hearing individuals as well as other populations, at home, in the workplace, in educational settings, and for recreational purposes including broadcast multimedia or video blogging. Review and practice with actual volunteer clients of the needs assessment, selection, and verification process will be provided in two hands-on one-day workshops in the Gallaudet 21st Century Captioning Research Lab.
Credits: 3
Distribution: Graduate, Masters
Designing meaningful relationships among people and the products they use to ensure that they are accessible is both an art and a science. This course will focus on the unique design practice of representing and organizing information in such a way as to facilitate perception and understanding of accessibility (information architecture) and specifying the appropriate mechanisms for accessing and manipulating task information (interaction design). This course will also explore the various design patterns (design solutions to problems) that are appropriate for the HCI professional. Students will need prior knowledge of an interface prototyping tool.
Credits: 3
Requisites:

AHC 601 or permission of the instructor

Distribution: Graduate, Masters
Data visualization is the art and science of turning data into readable graphics. We’ll explore how to design and create accessible data visualizations based on data available and tasks to be achieved that are accessible to people with diverse sensory abilities. This process includes data modeling, data processing (such as aggregation and filtering), mapping data attributes to graphical attributes, and strategic visual encoding based on known properties of visual perception as well as the task(s) at hand. Students will also learn to evaluate the effectiveness of visualization designs, and think critically about each design decision, such as choice of color and choice of visual encoding. Students will create their own data visualizations, and learn to use Open Source data visualization tools. Students will also read papers from the current and past visualization literature and create video presentations of their findings.
Credits: 3
Requisites:

AHC 601

Distribution: Graduate, Masters
The Master’s Project is a required, culminating project which demonstrates students’ exemplary achievement as a Master’s student. Under the supervision of Department faculty, students will develop projects that significantly advance knowledge in Accessible Technology. Students may elect to produce a Master’s thesis, a creative project, or an applied advocacy project.
Credits: 1
Requisites:

AHC 606 or permission of the instructor

Distribution: Graduate, Masters
Students will undertake an internship in an accessible technology role that is suited to their professional pursuits. These may include serving as Research Assistants within the University, at other Universities, or at federal or private companies. This program provides students with a means to integrate academic theories and principles with practical job experience through internships. The goal of the internship is to gain experience as a competent and effective accessible technology professional.
Credits: 1
Requisites:

AHC 691

Distribution: Graduate, Masters
The Master’s Project is a required, culminating project which demonstrates students’ exemplary achievement as a Master’s student. Under the supervision of Department faculty, students will develop projects that significantly advance knowledge in Accessible Technology. Students may elect to produce a Master’s thesis, a creative project, or an applied advocacy project.
Credits: 1
Requisites:

AHC 692

Distribution: Graduate, Masters
Special topics courses address subject matter or content not already included in the existing curriculum. Offered on a temporary basis, special topics may evaluate the demand for a new course or area of study or may cover areas of specific interest.
Credits: 1-3
Requisites:

permission of the instructor

Distribution: Graduate

Information

Accessible Human Centered Computing and Policy (AHCP) Requirements

Explore the M.S. in Accessible Human-Centered Computing at Gallaudet University. Discover program requirements and how to enhance accessibility in technology.

More

Accessible Human-Centered Computing and Policy (AHCP): Career Outcomes

Explore career outcomes for graduates of the M.S. in Accessible Human-Centered Computing and Policy at Gallaudet University. Unlock your potential today!

More

News

Conferences highlight the importance of Deaf education and access

READ

Christian Vogler and Greg Hlibok honored for achievements in accessibility

READ

Gallaudet experts weigh in on caption customization and other tech advances at international conference

READ

Professor wins mentoring award for encouraging students to study computing

READ

Admissions

Learn about Gallaudet University’s graduate admissions requirements, application steps, deadlines, and program-specific criteria on our Graduate Admissions page.

Graduate Programs International Graduate Students Non-Degree Seeking Graduate Students Contact Your Graduate Admissions Counselor

Tuition and Financial Aid

Accessibility is central to everything we do at Gallaudet—from inclusive learning environments to equitable access to graduate education. Our tuition structure and financial aid options are designed to support graduate students from a wide range of professional and financial backgrounds.

Explore Graduate Tuition and Costs Financial Aid Vocational Rehabilitation

Faculty

Raja Kushalnagar

Professor

Christian Vogler

Professor

Abraham Glasser

Assistant Professor

Contact

  • M.S. in Accessible Human-Centered Computing and Policy
  • raja.kushalnagar@gallaudet.edu
  • christian.vogler@gallaudet.edu
  • Monday
    9:00 am-5:00 pm
    Tuesday
    9:00 am-5:00 pm
    Wednesday
    9:00 am-5:00 pm
    Thursday
    9:00 am-5:00 pm
    Friday
    9:00 am-5:00 pm
Raja Kushalnagar

Professor

Christian Vogler

Professor

Overview

Requirements

Opportunities

Program Outcomes

Accreditation

Job Outlook

News

Faculty

FAQs

Contact

Back to Accessible Human-Centered Computing and Policy (AHCP)
APPLY NOW GRADUATE ADMISSIONS

Testimonial

Outline of Gallaudet building Outline of Gallaudet building

Let's Stay In Touch

Join our mailing list to learn more about Gallaudet

  • Visit
  • Apply
  • Give
  • Request Information

Footer Content

At a Glance
  • Quick Facts
  • University Leadership
  • History & Traditions
  • Accreditation
  • Consumer Information
  • Our 10-Year Vision: The Gallaudet Promise
  • Annual Report of Achievements (ARA)
  • The Signing Ecosystem
  • Not Your Average University
Our Community
  • Directory
  • MyGU
  • Library & Archives
  • Technology Support
  • Interpreting Requests
  • Health and Wellness Programs
  • Workday
  • Profile & Web Edits
  • Bison Shop
Visit Gallaudet
  • Explore Our Campus
  • Virtual Tour
  • Maps & Directions
  • Shuttle Bus Schedule
  • Kellogg Conference Hotel
  • Welcome Center
  • National Deaf Life Museum
  • Apple Guide Maps
  • DeafSpace
Engage Today
  • Work at Gallaudet / Clerc Center
  • Social Media Channels
  • University Wide Events
  • Data Requests
  • Subscribe
  • Gallaudet Today Magazine
  • Giving at Gallaudet
  • Gallaudet University Press
Contact Us
  • Financial Aid
  • Human Resources
  • Registrar’s Office
  • Residence Life & Housing
  • Safety & Security
  • Undergraduate Admissions
  • Graduate Admissions
  • University Communications
  • Clerc Center
  • English Language Institute
Gallaudet Logo

Gallaudet University, chartered in 1864, is a private university for deaf and hard of hearing students.

Copyright © 2026 Gallaudet University. All rights reserved.

  • Accessibility
  • Anti-Discrimination Statement
  • Cookie Consent Notice
  • Privacy Policy
  • File a Report
  • Sitemap

800 Florida Avenue NE, Washington, D.C. 20002