Dr. Brewer does research at the intersection of social computing and accessibility. As an Assistant Professor and Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in University of Michigan’s School of Information (UMSI), she investigates how to create more meaningful and accessible online communities for aging populations and voice-based interfaces for people with vision impairments. Her dissertation work focused on developing voice-based online communities for older adults with vision impairments. In the past, she has conducted research at University of Maryland’s HCIL, Carnegie Mellon’s Usable Privacy and Security Lab, UMBC’s PAD Lab, Northwestern University’s Inclusive Technology Lab, IBM Research, Facebook’s Research Center, and Microsoft Research. In her spare time, she helps lead Brave Initiatives, an organization that teaches high school girls to code using the user-centered design process. At Brave Camps, girls build websites addressing community issues they value.
Dr. Brewer holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, an M.S. in Human-Centered Computing from UMBC, and a Ph.D. in Technology and Social Behavior from Northwestern University.