Joshua Miele is a prominent blind scientist, designer, and thought leader in accessible technology and disability. He was selected as one of the MacArthur Fellows for 2021. The MacArthur Foundation described Miele as “a blind adaptive technology designer developing devices to enable blind and visually impaired (BVI) people to use technologies that pervade our lives. Miele’s graduate work focused on psychoacoustics (the science of sound perception) and directional aspects of hearing. More recently, he is creating effective and affordable solutions to everyday problems blind people face, particularly access to digital information.”

His compelling memoir, “Connecting Dots,” was written with the assistance of Wendell Jamieson, a former Metro editor of The New York Times who is currently the editorial director of Nicholas & Lence Communications in Manhattan.

Miele was not born blind. The horrifying event that caused his blindness is described in his memoir.

Miele, in his Prologue, explains that “In time I would learn that anything cool that I or any blind person wants to get involved with or just needs to do — whether it be traveling, using computers, unpacking groceries, roller skating, anything — before we can do it, we have to figure out how to adapt ourselves and adapt all the techniques that were invented by sighted people.”

“Connecting Dots” sheds new light on the lives of blind people. The book has much to teach us about blind peoples’ struggles to lead useful and meaningful lives and about how even the most terrible events in our lives can work for........

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