“Designing with and for People with Movement Impairments” | Shabboo Valipoor

Friday, April 2nd, 2021 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EST

How do we design the living environment for a growing and increasingly diverse aging population with different mobility and accessibility needs?  In this lecture, Dr. Valipoor will share the story of a multidisciplinary project aiming at developing a Virtual Reality (VR) tool for experiencing environmental alterations by older adults with movement disorders, specifically persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Using a person-centered approach to address individual needs of people with functional limitations, Dr. Valipoor and her colleagues envision their research efforts will provide opportunities for co-designing individualized environmental solutions with and for people with movement impairments in a participatory fashion.  

Shabboo Valipoor, Ph.D., EDAC, is an Assistant Professor of Interior Design at the College of Design, Construction and Planning at the University of Florida. Her research centers on the impact of the built environment on human health and safety, with a specific focus on healthcare facilities and environments for aging. Her current projects aim to (1) improve the quality of care in acute care settings by providing supportive environments for healthcare professionals and (2) minimize environmental risks to independent living for older adults. She has collaborated closely with scholars in engineering, medicine, occupational therapy, and computer science on works supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Science Foundation, Academy of Architecture for Health, and American Society of Interior Designers. She serves on the North America Chapter of the International Academy for Design and Health Leadership Committee where she works with a global interdisciplinary team to promote the application of research findings concerning the interaction between design and health.