From sound to touch: How Sile O’Modhrain designs accessible futures through her research, teaching and entrepreneurship

University of Michigan School of Information professor Sile O’Modhrain has built a career across music, technology and accessibility. Visually impaired from an early age, O’Modhrain’s research into haptics — technologies that communicate through touch — has helped develop new ways for people to access complex information beyond visual interfaces. 

Her work spans music, computing and artificial intelligence, all guided by one central question: How can we make complex information accessible in meaningful ways? 

That question began taking shape when O’Modhrain was young and navigating a world that wasn’t always designed for her.

“I grew up on a dairy farm in Ireland, and I’m visually impaired, so I ended up going to a boarding school for blind girls at the age of seven,” she says. “I was at a school before that, but my parents pulled me out because it wasn’t set up for me to succeed.” 

“For my final subjects in high school, you could pick two or three at a time, and I chose computer science and music,” she says. “So you can already see where my career was headed at that point.” 

Now a UMSI professor and a professor of music at U-M’s School of Music, Theatre and Dance, O’Modhrain followed those interests into higher education. After completing her undergraduate studies in music at Trinity College Dublin, she pursued a master’s degree in music technology at the University of York in the United Kingdom. The dual track led to her first professional role at BBC Radio, where she trained as a sound engineer and worked for nearly four years.

It was there that a technological shift would redirect her path. The industry was moving from physical editing tools to digital audio workstations. The problem? The new interfaces were inaccessible.

“They had no screen reading software that could cope with information in a non-visual form,” she says. “That became part of my mission. To find ways of accessing non-visual information like that in non-visual ways.” 

After a period of short-term contracts following BBC downsizing, O’Modhrain applied for a Fulbright scholarship to Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), where she completed her Ph.D. There, she deepened her research of sound, perception and technology. This work would shape the next stage of her career.

Following her doctorate, O’Modhrain joined MIT Media Lab as a postdoctoral researcher during the creation of Media Lab Europe. After a year in Boston, she returned to Dublin to lead a research group called Palpable Machines, where her work expanded into haptics, which are technologies that communicate through touch.

The team developed experimental systems, including “touch TV,” which conveyed information about television content through tactile feedback, as well as interactive prototypes that allowed users to physically feel movement in objects like remote-control cars and sports equipment.

“We were looking at the integration of haptic feedback into all sorts of applications,” she says. “That work got me into the whole field of what’s now called embodied interaction, which is thinking about the body’s role in how we interact with the world.” 

When Media Lab Europe closed, O’Modhrain moved to Queen’s University Belfast, where she taught for six years before joining The University of Michigan in 2011 in an interdisciplinary role spanning music, engineering and information science.  A longstanding collaboration with mechanical engineering professor Brent Gillespie helped bring her to Ann Arbor.

At U-M, O’Modhrain began developing new tactile display technologies that could represent complex information through touch. This work has led to her startup company, New Haptics, and her new  book, “A Dialogue of the Senses: Designing Interaction with the Body and Mind” with MIT Press. 

The company recently launched its first device, a four-line Braille display. This allows easy annotation for visually impaired users. 

“When you’re a musician, you often scribble notation on your score,” she says. “You can’t do that on a Braille score.” 

Alongside her research and entrepreneurship, at U-M, O’Modhrain has spent years developing a teaching philosophy grounded in embodied learning. Much of her instruction is project-based and physical, encouraging students to experience concepts directly rather than abstractly.

In acoustics courses, for example, students walk through standing sound waves or measure the speed of sound in hallways, developing an intuitive understanding of physical phenomena. As a professor, what she values most is the moment when students internalize new ways of thinking.

Today, O’Modhrain’s work spans the School of Information and the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, where she teaches in the Performing Arts Technology department.  

Outside of work, she remains connected to music and movement through playing piano, singing with the UMS Choral Union and running with a guide when weather allows. Across all of it, her focus remains the same: expanding access to information and interaction in ways that empower people to create, learn and participate fully.

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Learn more about Sile O’Mohdrain’s research and teaching by visiting her UMSI faculty profile.