Dr Marion Hersh is a senior lecturer (associate professor) in Biomedical Engineering, University of Glasgow, Scotland. She has over 160 research publications. Particular projects include user-centred design of assistive technology, subtitles for deaf people, assistive travel technology and modelling the spatial representations of blind people, communication devices for deafblind people, inclusive learning technologies, including educational games.
She has organised a conference series on assistive technology for sensory impaired people with European Commission funding; co-edited and contributed to Assistive Technology for the Hearing Impaired, Deaf and Deafblind and Assistive Technology for Visually Impaired and Blind People, published by Springer Verlag in 2003 and 2008 respectively, and has plans for a book on assistive robotics. Marion recent completed a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship on Mobility for Blind People. She has developed an innovative three-component model of the travel processes of blind, sighted and visually impaired people and co-developed the Comprehensive Assistive Technology modelling framework.
Marion is a chartered engineer and chartered mathematician, with a PhD in control engineering and a degree in mathematics, speaks seven languages fluently and has some knowledge of several others, including British Sign Language and the UK and Lorm deafblind manual alphabets. She has good contacts with several organisations of disabled people.