The Tactile Universe: Accessible astrophysics with the vision impaired community Dr Nic Bonne, University of Portsmouth

Event details

York Disability Week Lecture

Blind astronomer, Dr Nic Bonne, discusses growing up with a vision impairment, how this impacted his career, and how it has affected his lifelong fascination with astronomy, a traditionally visual science. Nic will speak about the Tactile Universe, a public engagement project that he leads at the University of Portsmouth, and will showcase the accessible resources the project team have developed - demonstrating how they can be used to open up new ways of experiencing astronomy for all. Nic will outline how these resources allow vision impaired pupils across the UK access to topics in current astronomy research, and how a series of Tactile Universe presenter training workshops are helping to change the way researchers and science communicators think about accessible science. Nic will discuss the lessons learnt by the project team along the way and what lies ahead for this exciting endeavour.  

Find out more about York Disability Week. 

Dr Nic Bonne

Originally from Australia, Dr Nic Bonne is a vision impaired astronomer and science communicator working as a Public Engagement and Outreach Fellow at the University of Portsmouth's Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation. He currently leads the STFC funded Tactile Universe public engagement project, which is developing free multi-sensory resources to help blind and vision impaired people engage with current topics in astronomy research. Through consultancy,  Nic also helps others both nationally and internationally find ways to communicate their science in more accessible modes.