Our Team

Senior Researcher

Nilsu Atilgan, PhD

Nilsu is a senior researcher in The Readability Consortium. She is trained as a vision scientist, received her PhD in cognitive and brain sciences at the University of Minnesota and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on underlying mechanisms of peripheral visual perception and attention, reading, and dyslexia. She has many years of experience studying readability, during her PhD and internship at Meta Reality Labs, ranging from optimizing reading parameters in low vision population to improving text legibility in AR/VR systems. Nilsu leads the research efforts within TRC in the topics of Psychophysics of Variable Typography and Information Design for the Individual.

Graduate Student Researcher, University of Northern Colorado

Caterina Azzarello

Caterina Belle Azzarello has a M.A. in educational psychology from the University of Northern Colorado, where she is currently studying for her doctoral program. Currently, she is working full time as a graduate student researcher for a few different labs. Her main topics of study are focused in human factors (i.e. eye tracking, readability), cognitive science (i.e. self-efficacy, math anxiety) and DEI-based research methods (i.e. Critical Race Theory, demographic reviews). Recent publications have been focused on the interconnection between self-efficacy and mathematics and qualitative-based research methods.

SME, Typography for Good, UCF

Samuel Berlow

As a school board president, father, coach, and CEO, Berlow has seen how information design can affect the transfer of information. Researching what parameters influence speed and comprehension has been an interest to Sam ever since his children started to read. In order to help his children read more efficiently, he would print out reading assignments in different sizes and in different fonts to see if it would help his kids.

Lead, Applied Research, UCF

Steven Clapp, PhD

Steven Clapp, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar in The Readability Consortium at the University of Central Florida. He is trained as a human-centered process design leader and was a management consultant in this regard for many years at some of North America’s top financial services firms and internet-based B2B companies. Steve was also a visiting professor of operations management and management science at the University of North Florida’s Coggin College of Business. Steve’s academic research focuses on creating holistic work environments that lead to increased employee well-being and productivity.

Research Scientist, UCF

Stephanie Day, PhD

Stephanie is the Associate Director of the Readability Consortium and a research scientist at the University of Central Florida. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at Florida State University. Her research centers on examining links between children’s learning difficulties, individual differences, the classroom environment, and achievement. Stephanie has over 18 years of experience managing large-scale research studies focused on building technology to improve literacy outcomes for students in elementary school and is leading the TRC readability education research in K-12 populations. She also leads research evaluating the use of Generative AI in education.

Laboratory Associate, UCF

Amy E. Giroux

Amy is a laboratory associate at the University of Central Florida focusing on readability in education and extended reality.

Software Developer

Mert Küçük

Mert is a software developer in the Readability Consortium. He is an experimental psychologist and a self-taught software developer with an ongoing PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Bosphorus University. His research career started as a MSc student at Izmir University of Economics by examining visual perception and brain electrophysiology in aging. Deciding to open-up his skills to the world as a freelancer, he has helped research groups develop their research design, setup experimental software and hardware, and devise analytical methods. Mert is responsible for developing tools and online experiments within TRC.

Test Implementation Assistant, University of Glasgow

Veronica Penkova, MSc

Veronica Penkova is a graduate student at the University of Glasgow who assists with readability test implementation in Pavlovia, Prolific, and Qualtrics. She is interested in readability in children and implementing accessibility user research.

Faculty, UCF

Ben D. Sawyer, PhD

Ben (he/his) is Director of The Readability Consortium and The Virtual Readability Laboratory, where he leads teams rethinking how information flows from human to machine, and back. He is Faculty at UCF in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems within the College of Computer Engineering and Computer Science, and The Institute for Simulation and Training. His previous positions include MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics, and Air Force Research Laboratory 711th Human Performance Wing. More at bendsawyer.com.