Rate My Professor Brian Trager

Brian Trager is the Department Chair of the Information and Computing Studies Department at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) within Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). He holds a BS and an MS in Information Technology, both from RIT. Trager joined RIT/NTID as faculty in 2003, serving initially as an Assistant Professor until 2022, during which time he also acted as Associate Director of the NTID Center on Access Technology. His areas of expertise include access technology, with a focus on enhancing educational and communicative tools for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students. In recognition of his teaching excellence, he received the NTID Teaching/Tutoring Award for Tenured Faculty in the 2013-2014 academic year. Trager currently teaches courses such as NACT-150: Intro to PC Hardware and NACT-151: Windows Operating Systems, emphasizing practical skills in hardware maintenance, troubleshooting, and operating system management.

Trager's research contributions center on accessibility technologies, including automatic speech recognition (ASR) and mobile applications for DHH users. Key publications include Butler, Janine, Brian Trager, and Byron Behm, 'Exploration of Automatic Speech Recognition for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students in Higher Education Classes,' in Proceedings of the ASSETS '19: The 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (2019); Trager, Brian, Wendy Dannels, and Aaron Wade Parker, 'MAG: De'VIA,' a phone/smart device app developed by the Center on Access Technology (2019); and Kushalnagar, R., B. Trager, and K. Beiter, 'Assistive View Replay for Deaf Students,' presented at the RESNA Annual Conference (2012). He co-invented technologies leading to U.S. Patent 11,012,559 on methods and systems to enhance communication between multiple parties (issued 2021). Notable projects include collaborations with Microsoft to integrate Translator and ASR for classroom accessibility (2018), development of the MUSEAI app for museum self-guided tours with captions and audio descriptions (2019), and a storybook app for deaf children (2014). These efforts have advanced inclusive technology in higher education, museums, and STEM fields for DHH individuals. Trager also serves on the NTID Faculty Congress, with a term extending to 2026.