Joshua Miele

Joshua Miele was born in New York in 1969. His father, Jean, worked as an architect, and Isabella Miele, was an artist.[1][2] At the age of 4, Miele was blinded and burned in an acid attack outside of his home.[1]

In 1987, Miele applied to study physics at the University of California, Berkeley.[3] Initially desiring to be a rocket scientist, Miele took an internship at NASA.[4] One semester prior to graduation, he paused his education to work at Berkeley Systems, then a start-up developing Macintosh computer software to be accessible to blind people.[3] After realizing he "would make a much bigger contribution by getting involved in the accessibility world" rather the field of physics, he returned to Berkeley to finish his physics degree and earn a doctorate in psychoacoustics.[4][3]

For fifteen years, Miele worked as scientist at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, a research institute in San Francisco, California, that designs and develops accessible technology for blind people.[4] He has served as president of the board of the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired.[1] He later left a twenty-year career in academia to join Amazon, where he is Principal Accessibility Researcher.[5]

In 2021, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship "for his inventions giving blind and visually impaired people access to everyday technology", with the citation specifically mentioning his work on TMAP, YouDescribe, and WearaBraille.[6]

Miele lives in Berkeley with his wife and two children.[1][4] He has two siblings; his older sister, Julia Miele Rodas, is a professor at Bronx Community College.[1]