Klamath Falls, Oregon – A faculty member at Oregon Tech has been recognized on a national level for his breakthrough efforts in making media more accessible. The American Council of the Blind (ACB) gave Dr. Brett Oppegaard the 2025 Special Achievement Award for his work to making national sites easier for blind or low-vision people to go to. He teaches in the university’s User Experience (UX) certificate program.
The award, given out by ACB’s Audio Description Project, honors people and groups who make audio description services better and more widely available across the country. Oppegaard got the award because he had worked with the National Park Service (NPS) for a long period. His research helped bring Audio Description to more than 200 public places around the country.
Some of the most famous places in the country, such as Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, the Lincoln Memorial, the Statue of Liberty, and even the White House, are on these sites. Audio Description is different from regular audio tours since it turns visual content like maps and pictures into rich stories for people who can’t see them. The idea is to make the area welcoming and immersive so that everyone can see and enjoy the visual qualities of it.
The UniDescription project is at the heart of Oppegaard’s work. It is a media accessibility project that has sponsorship from major national organizations like the NPS, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and even private companies like Google. The project is now a big component of making public spaces more inclusive through design.
Oppegaard’s research is in the areas of user experience, disability studies, interaction design, and digital equity. His love for accessibility is currently changing the way UX is taught at Oregon Tech. He will start a new special subjects course on UX accessibility in the spring of 2026. He says this is the only course of its sort in the country. The lecture will expand on his studies in the real world and provide students a chance to see accessibility techniques that are important all across the world.
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“I’m not aware of any other class that will be like it in the country,” he said. “Oregon Tech students, therefore, will be getting access to a global-leading initiative in the process, giving them a competitive advantage in UX training in the field of media accessibility, unlike anything else in the world.”
Oppegaard has taught at a number of schools besides Oregon Tech, such as the University of Portland, Washington State University, and the University of Hawai‘i. The ACB’s most recent award to him shows how important inclusive design is becoming in both education and public service.
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