About UsIt was a chance encounter...about 6 years ago professors Stephen Fickas and McKay Sohlberg chatted in the line at the University of Oregon coffee house. Although Steve is in Computer & Information Sciences and McKay is on the opposite side of the campus in the Communication Disorders & Sciences program, they found they had a common interest in training their graduate students. Steve was interested in giving his students a challenging software engineering problem; McKay was interested in the development and evaluation of assistive technology that could help people with significant cognitive impairments maximize their independence and community integration. What started out as a multidisciplinary class project, the development of an adapted email interface, became the subject of a five year research award from the U.S. Department of Education. From that grant, CogLink was developed. Recently, the two formed Personal Technologies (formerly Life Technologies, Inc.), a company that allows CogLink to be commercially distributed to those who need it. The company also serves as a vehicle for the development of other assistive tools. |