Deaf Software Engineer

[Melissa Hassel]

Inthe front of the room, wearing no headset, sat a young systems engineer named Johanna Lucht who, on a day of firsts for NASA, became the first deaf engineer to carry out an active role in a NASA control center during a crewed research flight.

The milestone of having a deaf engineer in a role with such responsibilities was not without its challenges. It was the ability to overcome challenges, however, that made NASA and Johanna the perfect fit.

Lucht moved to Alaska, where there were more accessible programs for deaf individuals, as well as exposure to the Deaf community. This allowed her not only to mature her communication skills, but to expand her studies in STEM. One program, Summery Academy 2008, introduced Johanna to computer science, and she began to immerse herself further into this study.

Another challenge was to find an interpreter with technical skills in the language. Many interpreters have liberal arts backgrounds, and may sometimes struggle to verbalize correct terminology and interpret highly technical content in sign, where some of technical terminology does not exist in ASL. Instead, they often have to be spelled out by hand.

As the interpreter, who was completely visible to Lucht on one of her two monitors, listened in on flight communications, she was able to convey those communications to Johanna, using American Sign Language. After successfully practicing the communication, it was decided that Lucht was ready to take on the training Systems II role for the actual flight.

The pilot was to perform a maneuver, called a Pushover-Pull-up, or POPU. In the maneuver, the pilot dips the nose of the aircraft, to produce low gravitational forces, and then pulls up, to create higher g-forces on the aircraft to test structural integrity. The maneuver was scheduled to be coming up, but as it had not yet been stated, it was not yet expected to be done.

Lucht noted a change in the data coming in from the aircraft. She looked over to the interpreter, but since no communication had been made about the maneuver, there was nothing for the interpreter to sign over to Johanna. She then looked around the control room, and no one seemed to notice or commented on the maneuver. Then the pilot communicated that he had completed the maneuver.

Johanna was not only adequate in her role during the flight, but she excelled, showing that she can work in a fast-paced environment as effectively as other engineers in the room, without any unnecessary complications.

I am a clinical genetic technologist with skills in both cyto and molecular genetics. I also work as a research consultant in the accessibility space with a focus on barriers encountered by scientists with disabilities or who are Deaf. I also train and consult with organizations around inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility as part of an organization I co-founded, IDEA-STEM. I am an Ontario trained teacher of the Deaf/Hard of Hearing. My masters is in marine evolutionary biology from Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Modern biological experiments generate an unprecedented amount of data. How do we discover new biology when we have millions of microscopy images or protein sequences, and it becomes impossible to look at data at a one-by-one basis anymore? My research develops machine learning methods for discovering hypotheses in biology.

Are you curious who the scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians (STEMists) in our community are? Look no further! This is the place for you to search and connect with fellow STEMists.

RIT/NTID's engineering programs combine classroom and laboratory learning in technical areas with a cooperative work experience to give you an exceptional engineering education. By studying in state-of-the-art facilities and working with industry-standard equipment, you'll enter the workforce prepared to make an impact your first day on the job.

The Department of Engineering Studies (DES) is a leader in providing technical education, academic support, and encouragement to prepare deaf and hard-of-hearing students for careers in engineering, engineering technology, and engineering-related fields.

I attended a School for the Deaf, so when I was looking for colleges I wanted access to deaf and hard-of-hearing people and individuals who would support me like I had growing up. At RIT I found a community of people to connect with and lean upon.

Services provided for students include individual and small group tutoring, co-op and career advising, and collaboration with the faculty and administrators in RIT's College of Engineering and College of Engineering Technology.

So now I'm tackling deafness from a different angle... One of my engineers has recently been tested and found he has a major deficiency in his mid-to-high range. I'm still fishing for more precise information as to what kind of loss and what the suspected cause might be. He's a mid-30's single male, without the usual penchants for rock 'n' roll, clubbing or other noisy activities. And he's not a pro engineer either - his only sound experience (so far as I'm aware) comes from volunteering with us on a twice-monthly basis.

This obviously brings some issues. Those of us running larger teams never want to lose valued members, and to date I've had no problem with his work or his attitude. He's obviously now lacking confidence, so there are some questions coming out of this:

If they can hear anything at all either with or without some form of assistance such as a hearing aid(s) then providing that the sound they hear is in some way proportional to that of what other people hear there is no reason whatsoever why this person cannot carry on engineering.

The sound is indeed very different and what you hear there is different to what you hear out front, where the audience are. The key is to mix indirectly. You know how you want it to sound, so you get that sound out front and then you listen to how it sounds in your mix position. Very similar (although generally less drastic) Principles apply if you're shoved under a balcony in the corner, or up in a box 15 feet in the air.

When you have your good mix out front that you want, you know what you are aiming for. Perhaps it will sound too loud in your mix position. Perhaps far too much sub, perhaps the vocals will sound rather dull (most likely) but you know that this is fine out front, so this is the sound you aim to keep throughout the show.

If you're hard of hearing you can use this same method (all be it a few subtle changes). The subtle difference is that they may need to take some time with the help of someone else to work out how the sound is different so they can mix accordingly

All in all, I don't see any major problem at all with it. It just requires some time and some effort and basic training of their ears to improve the sound. Once they've established the variance between what they hear and what everyone else hears on average (remember we all hear things differently anyway there are likely people with much worse hearing in the audience) then there is nothing to stop them mixing.

I've been to a couple of gigs in the last few years where it has been painfully obvious that the FoH engineer had no idea what their mix really sounded like. You could have used either to peel paint at 100m. In one case, the guy was kicked-back, just watching, with a smile on his face from a job well done. The audience's ears were bleeding.

At the second, a festival, all was well for the first two days. Lateish on Friday the headline act reprised their seminal album from many years ago. I suspect that they dragged their engineer of the period out too.

As others have indicated, it depends upon a) the degree of hearing loss b) the type of hearing loss c) the extent of other related hearing disorders and d) the time 'history' over which the loss has occured.

Many of us have some degree of hearing loss, but it is either too small to make a difference, or we employ coping strategies - or we just don't notice it! As the hearing loss becomes more acute, our ability to listen accurately diminishes.

A sound engineer with some degree of loss would need to ensure that he or she can compare what they mix with a known (well mixed) piece on a 'reference' system, and may well benefit from using a sound level meter at FOH to provide an indication of actual level.

If hearing loss has occurred over a long period, then the person may well have developed some degree of compensation or adjustment. If it has happened fairly quiockly, or if temporary threshold shift has occurred, then the engineer may not be aware of the loss and mix badly... If there is a complete loss at specific frequencies, then they just have to mime ;-)

The FoH position was horrible - 14' up right in the corner of roof & back wall, which overemphasised the bass, but I compensated by doing as I always do: I asked people sat in various parts of the room, both when empty & full throughout rehearsals, how the sound was & kept tweaking until the comments were, more or less, favourable: It works for me.

I too have terrible tinnitus (in my left ear), the cause of which was a type of brain tumour called an acoustic neuroma (or formerly called vestibular schwanoma). If your tinnitus has come on suddenly then it's likely nerve damage due to something similar. Or, in some cases, stress related. Then of course there's tinnitus caused by noise. best to get it looked at.

I sympathise with you palantir - I also find being in social situations very difficult a much as love being out. It can be quite alienating, subtle nuances are missed, humour goes over my head etc etc.

The engineer has mixed well for a while I assume and obviuosly you were satisfied enough to retain them on the phone list, SO their work quality needn't be different after a hearing test. Sadly their confidence may be so dented that they don't return to work though. Having a hearing test hasn't caused the hearing loss, just identified it.

I'm 50, so I have Simon's age related loss (never knew it had a proper name!) and playing a test tone at 15K from this laptop makes my son in the same room scream, and I cannot hear anything at all. 14K is there loud and clear. I've compensated a little by deciding to ease off slightly from my personal preferred setting of the HF, on the assumption that if I think the cymbals sound right, they're probably not - and asking the younger people if they feel the metalwork is a bit 'sharp' usually gets a nod. Dropping it back a little until they think it sounds ok mean I've got a pretty good handle on what they think it sounds like - even if to me it's a tad dull.

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