The women who translated the solar eclipse into sound for the blind and visually impaired
April 8 marks a total solar eclipse that will cross North America from Mexico to Newfoundland. Many of us will travel to eclipse hot spots and don special glasses to view a phenomenon that will not occur again for 20 years. But what if you have limited vision or can’t see at all? Now the blind and visually impaired can actually “hear” the eclipse thanks to the inventiveness of two women astronomers: Allyson Bieryla, the manager of Harvard’s undergraduate astronomy lab and telescopes; and Wanda Díaz Merced, who is blind and at the time was with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Their LightSound device translates changing light intensity into musical tones that change as the sky grows dark and brightens again. In 2018 it was redesigned by another woman: Harvard undergrad Sǒley Hyman, who incorporated a synthesizer board and developed a code for its flute, clarinet and clicking sounds. This year the team distributed 900 LightSound devices across the country – to event organizers, libraries, museums, universities, schools for the blind– and even conducted workshops for volunteers to build their own devices. A passionate advocate for accessibility within the field, Bieryla and her team have given an unexpected gift to individuals who can now experience a solar eclipse using sound instead of sight.
NY Times article: February 3, 2024
