Oliver Alonzo

Assistant Professor at DePaul University

I am an Assistant Professor at DePaul University’s School of Computing.

I obtained my PhD from the Computing and Information Sciences program at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where I was advised by Matt Huenerfauth.

My previous experiences include a year as a post-doctoral Assistant Professor at Creighton University, and internships at Facebook and Adobe Research as a UX and HCI Researcher, respectively.

Check out my full CV for more details.

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• Google Scholar |
• LinkedIn |
• GitHub

Research

My work focuses on Computing Accessibility and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). My research focuses on increasing access to digital information and multimedia for people with sensory disabilities, with particular expertise on designing technologies with and for people who are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (DHH).

Prior work, for example, includes the design and evaluation of automatic text simplificiation tools to provide reading assistance for people who are DHH, tools to assist American Sign Language learners, and ways to caption non-speech sounds in online videos. Current projects span multimedia accessibility, reading support, access to reliable information, and communication through emerging surfaces (e.g. virtual reality).

Fun Facts

I play a few instruments, including guitar and piano, and I also sing. I have also performed in a few musical theatre productions, and short films. Off the spotlight, I enjoy doing black & white photography.

I am fluent in Spanish 🇩🇴, English 🇺🇸, and Portuguese 🇧🇷, and I am in the process of learning American Sign Language 🤟.

Recent Publications

• CHI 2025 🏅 Honorable Mention
  "I have never seen that for Deaf people's content:" Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing User Experiences with Misinformation, Moderation, and Debunking on Social Media in the US

  Filipo Sharevski, Oliver Alonzo, Sarah Hau

  • Paper |
  • Presentation
• ASSETS 2024
  Design and Evaluation of an Automatic Text Simplification Prototype with Deaf and Hard-of-hearing Readers

  Oliver Alonzo, Sooyeon Lee, Akhter Al Amin, Mounica Maddela, Wei Xu, Matt Huenerfauth

  • Paper |
  • Presentation
• ASSETS 2022
  Beyond Subtitles: Captioning and Visualizing Non-speech Sounds to Improve Accessibility of User-Generated Videos

  Oliver Alonzo, Hijung Valentina Shin, Dingzeyu Li

  • Paper |
  • Presentation

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