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.
- Email |
- 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
See publications for a full list.
- ASSETS 2025A Review of 25 Years of Human-Computer Interaction Research on Reading Support Technologies for People with Disabilities Published in ACMOliver Alonzo, Saad Hassan
- 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 USFilipo Sharevski, Oliver Alonzo, Sarah Hau
- ASSETS 2024Design and Evaluation of an Automatic Text Simplification Prototype with Deaf and Hard-of-hearing ReadersOliver Alonzo, Sooyeon Lee, Akhter Al Amin, Mounica Maddela, Wei Xu, Matt Huenerfauth
Recent News
My ASSETS 2025 submission with Saad Hassan was accepted! In it, we present a review of 101 ACM papers on reading support for people with disabilities.
My CRII NSF grant proposal was awarded 💵 This two-year project will lay the foundation towards making videos accessible by design with and for Deaf, Hard-of-hearing, Blind and Low-Vision viewers.
Our CHI 2025 paper received an honorable mention!
Our paper on the experiences of Deaf and Hard-of-hearing social media users with misinformation and debunking was accepted at CHI 2025 🚀