Rachel Adler

For More Information

• Dr. Adler's Webpage

Education

• The Graduate Center, CUNY (New York, NY); PhD, Computer Science; 2012
• Brooklyn College, CUNY (Brooklyn, NY);  MA, Computer and Information Science; 2009
• Brooklyn College, CUNY (Brooklyn, NY);  BS, Computer and Information Science; 2001

Biography

Rachel Adler is an associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Adler's research interests are in human-computer interaction, accessibility, and computing education. She is particularly interested in designing applications for and with people with disabilities. Some of her recent projects include co-designing a mobile health application to empower cancer survivors with disabilities, co-designing a mobile health peer navigator intervention for people with disabilities, and creating accessibility games to teach students about accessible design. Her research has been funded through the National Science Foundation; National Institutes of Health; National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research; and the U.S. Department of Education. She holds a PhD in computer science from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Academic Positions

• Faculty Affiliate (0%), Siebel School of Computing and Data Science, 12/2025-Present
• Faculty Affiliate (0%), Siebel Center for Design, 8/2024-Present
• Associate Member, Cancer Center at Illinois, 12/2023-Present
• Faculty Affiliate (0%), Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, 12/2023-Present
• Faculty Affiliate (0%), National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 10/2023-Present
• Faculty Affiliate (0%), Illinois Informatics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 09/2023-Present 
• Associate Professor, School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 08/2023-Present
• Affiliate Faculty, C3 Lab, Northwestern University, 09/2020-08/2022
• Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, 08/2019-08/2023
• Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Northwestern University, 09/2019-08/2020
• Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, Northeastern Illinois University, 01/2013-08/2019

Research Interests

• Computing Education
• Accessibility
• Human-Computer Interaction

Selected Articles in Journals

• Choudhry, A. Mshvelidze, J., Mullen, S., Kletenik, D., and Adler, R. F. (2026, to appear) Motivations, Barriers, and the Potential of AI in Physical Activity Applications for U.S. Older Adults: Interview Study, JMIR Aging.
• Liu, C., AI, M., Wang, P., and Adler, R. F. (2026, to appear). No Sound, No Problem: Accessibility in Gaming for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Players. PACM Human-Computer Interaction 10(7), GAMES.
• Kletenik, D., Almendral C., de Goeas-Malone, M., and Adler, R. F. (2026). Bridge to Inclusion: Enhancing Digital Literacy for Pre-Service Teachers with Accessibility Integration. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education (CITE).
• Kletenik, D., Adler, R. F., Rivera, B., and Wong, M. (2026). Leveling the Playing Field: Using Games to Enhance Accessibility Education in Library and Information Science. Information and Learning Sciences.
• Zhou K. Z., Iftakher, R., Mullen, S. P., Adler, R. F., & Kletenik, D. (2025). Toward Designing Accessible and Meaningful Software for Cancer Survivors. PACM Human-Computer Interaction 9(7), CSCW.
• Adler, R. F., Shan, J., Sotelo, J., Raudales Reyes, D. I., Baez, K., Delgado, M., Mathur, A., Phillips, A., Zhou, K. Z., and Magasi, S. (2025). Designing an mHealth Prototype for People with Disabilities: Insights from Co-Design and Heuristic Evaluation. Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology 21(2), 904-924.
• Zhou K. Z., Peng, W., Liu, Y., Adler, R. F. (2025). Exploring the Diversity of Music Experiences for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Individuals. In PACM Human-Computer Interaction 9(2), CSCW.
• Adler, R.F., and Kletenik, D. (2025). Empowering access: Integrating multiple means of engagement when teaching accessible design principles. Education and Information Technologies.
• Adler R. F., Baez, K., Morales P., Sotelo J., Victorson, D., and Magasi S. (2024). Evaluating the Usability of an mHealth App for Empowering Cancer Survivors with Disabilities: Heuristic Evaluation and Usability Testing. JMIR Human Factors, 11: e51522, total pages 14 doi: 10.2196/51522.
• Winters, C. A., Marshall, H. K., Victorson, D. E., Adler, R. F., and Magasi, S. (2023). Does the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) Capture the Complex Experiences of Cancer Survivors? A Mixed Methods Approach, Occupational Therapy In Health Care, 38 (2), 347-363 doi: 10.1080/07380577.2023.2215875.
• Adler, R. F. and Kletenik, D. (2023). Accessibility for All: Introducing IT Accessibility in Postsecondary Computer Science Programs for K-12 Teachers. Practice brief. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability (JPED), 36(1), 103-108.

Articles in Conference Proceedings

• Kletenik, D., Krupitskaya, M., Onokhina, M., Liu, C., Adler, R. F. (2026). Games, Personas, and Prototyping: Teaching Accessible Design for Cancer Survivors. In Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER ’26), (pp. 422-438). 
• Kletenik, D. and Adler, R. F. (2026). Tracing the Impact: A Longitudinal Study of Accessibility Training. In Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT 2026), (pp. 449-459).
• Kletenik, D., Parthasarathy, P.D., and Adler, R. F. (2026). The Most Important Feature Is Inclusion: Adding A Focus in Accessibility to an E-commerce Course for Novices. In Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT 2026), (pp. 17-26).  
• Choudhry, A., Mazumder, B., Marks, L. A., Elmenshawy, R., Kletenik, D., Mullen, S., & Adler, R. F. (2026). Creating Opportunities: Co-Designing an mHealth App with Older Adults. In IEEE 29th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design (CSCWD), (pp. 3526-3532). 
• Uba, E. and Adler, R. F. (2026). May We Know You? Operationalizing Co-Design Within African Communities: A Scoping Review. In IEEE 29th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design (CSCWD), (pp. 3416-3421).
• Kletenik, D., Lodvikov, E., and Adler, R. F. (2026). Incluso!: Introducing Universal Design Through Play. In EngageCSEdu. (ACM Teaching Materials for Computing)
• Adler, R. F., Rivera, B., and Kletenik, D. (2026). You're on the Ball: Using Games to Explore Accessibility for Neurodivergent Users. In Proceedings of the 57th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '26).
• Wang, H., Choudhry, A., Adler, R. F., and Zhou, K. Z. (2026). Simplicity Gone Wrong: Revisiting Implicit Designs for Older Adults. In 59th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS).
• Wang, O., Liu, C., Adler, R. F., Almendral, C., Kletenik, D., McDonagh, D., Oro, B., and Zhou, K. Z. (2025). Teaching Accessibility Across Disciplines: Perspectives from ADA Title II. In Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (pp. 1-5). (Workshop Proposal)
• Zhou, K. Z., Liu, C., Li, Y., Kletenik, D., and Adler, R. F. (2025). Beyond swipe and tap: Cultivating mobile accessibility awareness and knowledge in computing disciplines, in American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference (ASEE) - Computers in Education Division (COED).
• Chen, J. E., Choudhry, A., Zhou, K. Z., and Adler, R. F. (2025). Toward More Inclusive eHealth Technologies for Older Adults: A Narrative Review. In IEEE 28th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design (CSCWD).
• Liu, C., Wang, A., Iyer, M., Slaughter, G., Bosch, A., Lodvikov, E. Zhou, K. Z., Kletenik, D., and Adler, R. F. (2025). Teaching Accessibility: A Family Workshop for Middle School Students. In ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) - Late-Breaking Works (LBWs) Track.
• Parthasarathy, P.D., Adler, R. F., Kletenik, D., Joshi, S., and Mittal, A. M. (2025). Skill, Will, or Both? Understanding Digital Inaccessibility from Accessibility Professionals’ Viewpoint. In ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) - Late-Breaking Works (LBWs) Track.
• Liu, C., Zhou, K. Z., Sy, S., Lodvikov, E., Shan, J., Kletenik, D., and Adler, R. F. (2025). Opening Digital Doors: Early Lessons in Software Accessibility for K-8 Students. In Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '25), (pp. 722-728).
• Zhou, K. Z., Adler, R. F., Almendral, C., Choi, S., Kletenik, D., Oro, B., and Seo J. (2024). Teaching Accessibility in Different Disciplines: Topics, Approaches, Resources, Challenges. In Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Workshop Proposal).
• Zhou, K. Z., Liu, C., Shan, J., Kletenik, D., and Adler, R. F. (2024). Accessible Adventures: Teaching Accessibility to High School Students Through Games, 87th Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T 2024). (Honorable Mention Best Long Paper Award).
• Adler, R. F., Baez, K., Delgado, M., Raudales Reyes, D. I., Sotelo, J., Shan, J., Zhou, K. Z. and Magasi, S. (2024). mENTER: Co-Designing an mHealth Peer Navigator Intervention for People with Disabilities. In Proceedings of the 3rd Empathy-Centric Design Workshop (EMPATHICH ’24 CHI ’24 Workshop), (pp. 26-33).
• Kletenik, D. and Adler, R. F. (2024). Motivated by Inclusion: Understanding Students' Empathy and Motivation to Design Accessibly Across a Spectrum of Disabilities. In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '24), (pp. 680-686).
• Kletenik, D., Minkowitz, R., Peric, A., Sahin, M., and Adler, R. F. (2024). From Awareness to Action: Teaching Software Accessibility for Neurodiverse Users. In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '24), (pp. 687-693).
• Kletenik, D. and Adler, R. F. (2023). Who Wins: A Comparison of Accessibility Simulation Games vs. Classroom Modules. In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '23), (pp. 214-220).
• Li Zhao, A., Paley, A., Adler, R. F., and Hammond, K. (2022). OpenIllinois: An Information System for Transparency in Illinois State Electoral Finances. In 23nd Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, (pp. 466-468).
• Kletenik, D. and Adler, R. F. (2022). Let's Play: Increasing Accessibility Awareness and Empathy Through Games. In Proceedings of the 53nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '22), (pp. 182-188).
• Li Zhao, A., Paley, A., Adler, R., Pack, H., Servantez, S., Einarsson, A., Barrie, C., Sterbentz, M., and Hammond, K. (2021). Requirements for Open Political Information: Transparency Beyond Open Data. In AAAI Fall Symposium on Artificial Intelligence in Government and Public Sector, total pages 5. https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.03119
• Paley, A., Li Zhao, A., Pack, H., Servantez, S., Adler, R. F., Sterbentz, M., Pah, A., Schwartz, D., Barrie, C., Einarssan, A., and Hammond, K. (2021). From Data to Information: Automating Data Science to Explore the U.S. Court System. In The 18th International Conference of Artificial Intelligence and Law (ICAIL 2021), (pp. 119-128) (Best Innovative Application Paper Award).

Invited Lectures

• “Interactive Games for Teaching Accessible Design”
• “Interactive Learning Games for Teaching Accessible Design” (with Devorah Kletenik, Chunyu Liu, and Catherine Law)
• “Designing Accessible Health Technologies for Cancer Survivors with Disabilities”
• Panelist, “Scaling Accessibility Across and Beyond the Curriculum,”

Honors

• Honorable Mention Best Long Paper Award, for the paper titled “Accessible Adventures: Teaching Accessibility to High School Students Through Games.” (Co-author) (2024)
• Teacher Ranked as Excellent, IS 226 (Introduction to HCI) (Spring 2024)
• Arnold O. Beckman Award (selects projects of special distinction or promise to receive this designation) (2024-2025)
• Best Innovative Application Paper Award, for the paper titled “From Data to Information: Automating Data Science to Explore the U.S. Court System.” (Co-author) (2021)
• Faculty Excellence Award in Research (2019-2020)
• Faculty Excellence Award in Research (2017-2018)
• Faculty Excellence Award in Research (2016-2017)
• Faculty Excellence Award in Research (2015-2016)
• Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching (2014-2015)
• Student organization advisor award, the Indelible Mark Award (2014)