These awards were presented to a faculty member, a staff member, a student, and an organization for being pioneers of disability accessibility and diversity. Winners were honored at a Disability Awareness Month reception held March 1 in the Purdue Memorial Union. 

Duerstock received the faculty award for teaching students about disability awareness and inspiring them to use their engineering skills and talent to improve society. In his IE 59000 graduate course, he has introduced students to the principles of design, evaluation and delivery of assistive technology for persons with disabilities. He developed the Purdue Institute for Accessible Science, in which his group explores innovative approaches to better integrate engineering strategies or technologies to improve the human condition. Duerstock has also designed award-winning technology for individuals with mobility impairments, founding Prehensile Technologies LLC, to commercialize his inventions, and has worked recently on developing assistive technology that enables students with visual impairments to identify scientific images depicted on a computer screen.

More: Read about Duerstock's RoboDesk