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The Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award

Letter of Recommendation Form
Thank you for your support of the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards program.
Please complete the form below to submit your letter of recommendation in support of the award nominee. Recommendations cannot exceed 800 words. You will not be able to submit your recommendation if the maximum word count exceeds 800 words.
Please note that recommendations should come from someone other than the person who nominated the candidate. Please note that required fields on this form are indicated by an asterisk (*).

* Nominee Name:
* Your First Name:
* Your Last Name:
* Your State:
* Your Phone Number:
* Your Email Address:
* Your Relationship to Nominee:

Please enter your letter of recommendation in the text area provided below: April 15, 2024 Dear Committee: I am writing this letter in support of Sam Dooley’s nomination for the 2024 Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award. Sam’s work on the Equalize Editor has the potential to remove long-standing access barriers to STEM content for all blind people. I first met Sam approximately 7 years ago when I was consulting with Pearson and have worked with Sam periodically since then. The Equalize Editor enables blind students to interact with sighted educators and parents who are not trained in braille codes used in STEM. Both blind and sighted users can enter text and math using their preferred entry method, and the editor instantaneously produces both the braille and visual versions of the content. The blind user reads the braille using touch on a refreshable braille device and the sighted user reads it on the screen. There is no other tool like the Equalize Editor. For more than a decade, Sam has worked tirelessly to design this needed resource for making textbooks, web-based math content, and other materials available to braille readers, while also allowing both sighted and blind users to participate in the authoring process. I hope the committee will choose Sam Dooley as a recipient of the 2024 Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award. Please feel free to contact me for additional information or if you have any questions. Sincerely, Tina S. Herzberg, Ph.D. Professor and Coordinator of the Visual Impairment Education Program University of South Carolina Upstate
To avoid multiple recommendation submissions, please click submit one time only.

The Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award

Letter of Recommendation Form