Google Doodle features alumna Dorothy “Dot” Miles

The Google Doodle for August 19 features Dorothy “Dot” Miles, ’61, a well-known sign language poet, performer, and political activist from Wales. It appears on what would have been Miles’ 93rd birthday. Created by Korean American Deaf artist Youmee Lee, the Doodle shows Miles signing “follow the sun from rise to set, or bounce it like a ball” from her poem Language for the Eye. 

Read the narrative for this Google Doodle.

Watch Dot Miles perform Language for the Eye in British Sign Language.

Earlier this year, Purple Plaques Wales honored Miles as their 16th “remarkable woman” and installed a purple plaque outside her ancestral home in Rhyl, Denbighshire, Wales.

Miles composed the original English version of the Bison Song, which is performed at athletics events, Homecoming, Commencement, and other special occasions.

Watch an early rendition of the Bison Song.
Several other Deaf subjects and themes have appeared as Google Doodles in the past. In March 2023, former University Communications employee Meeya Tjiang designed a Google Doodle in honor of the late Deaf stuntwoman Kitty O’Neil.