Raja Kushalnagar

I am the Director of the Information Technology program in the Department of Science, Technology and Mathematics at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. Our IT program has grown rapidly in the past few years, and we are exploring new concentrations and minors for the program, including cybersecurity and data science. 

I primarily teach human-centered computing with a focus on accessible computing, and application development courses. I also teach cybersecurity related courses at both the introductory and specialized levels.

My research interests encompass the fields of accessible computing and accessibility/intellectual property law, with the goal of improving information access for deaf and hard of hearing individuals. In the accessible computing field, I investigate information access disparities between hearing and deaf. For example, I investigate how deaf individuals acquire information through speech-to-text, e.g., enhanced captions that provide visual cues to non-speech information.

In the accessibility/intellectual property law field, I advocate for updates in accessible and intellectual property law, to incorporate accessible computing advances such as automatic captioning/subtitling.

I have published several peer-reviewed publications and received grants in the fields of accessible computing, accessible law and intellectual property law.