Hometown:
Highlands Ranch, Colorado

Concentration:
Independent Concentration: Disability and Design

Community Engagement through Swearer:
Royce Fellow

Rishika Kartik ’26, a current Royce Fellow with the Swearer Center, has combined her interest in accessibility and art through her Fellowship project. Her project analyzes the therapeutic benefits of accessible art in low-vision rehabilitation, education and orientation-mobility training across blind adults nationwide.

“The Royce Fellowship has taught me the power of narrative storytelling, design thinking and co-creating with communities. My research has shown me the benefit of interconnecting the currently siloed medicine, research, art, engineering, and education, the nexus of which I aim to explore as a long-term career. I work towards a multi-faceted future that embraces creativity and disability justice."

With a passion for using the arts to improve wellbeing, Kartik collaborated with the blind community to conduct interviews, learning about different techniques people who were blind used to explore their creativity. It was then that was introduced to the concept of "image poverty," which is when blind people struggle to contextualize visual descriptions/stimuli because of a lack of 3D experience. Her interviews found that using art as a mode of self-expression and storytelling contributes to a sense of confidence, self-advocacy and connectedness with others, particularly others who are blind or visually impaired.

"The unconventional and creative nature of art makes it a powerful vehicle to promote inclusion in educational, healthcare and social spaces. I believe that learning, connecting with others, and expressing ourselves are fundamental characteristics of being human, and I hope to play a small part in making these aspects of life more democratized and accessible.”

Upon sharing her findings with Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments, Kartik helped to modify lesson plans to include art, such as sculpture and origami, to produce 3D educational models and promote SEL in classrooms. She also shared her research project with the Tactile Media Alliance, a global network of accessible designers, where they explored the implications of 3D-accessible art in museums and public cultural spaces. Kartik was also selected to present her work to healthcare professionals at the 2023 Summer Grand Rounds at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, where she spoke to physicians and residents across the state about using accessible design to improve patient experiences. Locally, Kartik created a community-engaged club within the Providence community through Design for America.

Kartik joined the ASPECT Patient Engagement Program at Prevent Blindness, a national group of doctors, educators, blind/low-vision individuals and allies that work to increase public education about eye health and blindness advocacy. She partnered with program director Julie Grutzmacher and researcher Dr. Penny Rosenblum to design an online directory for people to find others with the same eye condition, goals, experiences, or interests and learn more about low-vision/blindness resources.

Kartik aims to develop a career pathway that builds on the research, community co-creation, and storytelling work that she’s done through the Royce Fellowship, sharing  “I work towards a multi-faceted future that embraces creativity and disability justice."

This year, Kartik is in the process of furthering her research and advocacy by partnering with physicians and mentors at the National Federation of the Blind to create accessible art installations in ophthalmologist's offices and pediatric health clinics.

If you have a project or an idea that connects with community priorities and needs, explore different ways to engage through the Swearer Center.

^{In April 2023, Kartik gave a TEDx talk titled, "Creativity is More Accessible Than Meets The Eye."}