ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´

Boris Vukovic

Adjunct Research Professor | School of Industrial Design

• B.A. Hon. (ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´), M.Ed. (uOttawa), Ph.D. (McGill)
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Research Profile

Boris Vukovic is an applied interdisciplinary accessibility researcher and innovation leader whose work connects disability services, inclusive higher education, accessibility standards, participatory research, and responsible AI for accessibility services.

Research Focus

My work advances accessibility as an applied, interdisciplinary field of research and innovation. I focus on how institutions understand accessibility needs, design services, make accommodation decisions, implement standards, and use emerging technologies to improve participation for people with visible and nonvisible disabilities.

I am especially interested in research that moves across disciplines and sectors, connecting lived experience, professional practice, policy, design, and technology. This includes participatory and collaborative projects that generate practical evidence, tools, and models for real-world education, public sector, and human service settings.

Current work explores responsible AI for accessibility services, including accessibility needs assessment, accommodation planning, service navigation, and decision support. This research emphasizes human oversight, transparency, ethical implementation, and scalable innovation grounded in the experiences of the people and professionals affected by these systems.

Selected Research and Innovation Outputs

Selected outputs below reflect work across accessibility research, AI for accessibility services, inclusive higher education, disability services, accessibility standards, built environments, employment, and systems change. A fuller record is available through Google Scholar and my academic CV.

AI, disability services, and accessibility decision support

Kevadiya, R., Akkasi, A., Fraser, K. C., Vukovic, B., Gunnell, J., Tanguay, S., Nowrouzi-Kia, B., & Komeili, M. (2026). Disability assessment and prediction of academic accommodations for students in post-secondary education. Accepted regular paper, 2026 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC).

Kevadiya, R., Akkasi, A., Fraser, K. C., Vukovic, B., Gunnell, J., Tanguay, S., & Komeili, M. (2025). Generalized follow-up WHODAS 2.0 assessment through language models and adaptive clustering ensemble in higher education. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM International Conference on Pervasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments (PETRA ’25), 349–358. Association for Computing Machinery.

Vukovic, B. (2026, July). Intentional intelligence: An inclusive and ethical co-design approach to interdisciplinary AI research and development for postsecondary accessibility services. Symposium presentation, LICIE 2026, London, UK.

Vukovic, B., Komeili, M., Hamm, B., & Gunnell, J. (2026, June). Navigating GenAI in student services: Lessons from co-designing and implementing AVA in disability support. Presentation, CACUSS 2026: NAVIGATING the Future: What’s Next for Student Affairs?

Accessibility as an applied interdisciplinary field

Vukovic, B. (2023). Accessibility as an emerging field. In J. W. Madaus & L. L. Dukes III (Eds.), Handbook of Higher Education and Disability: Elgar Handbooks in Education Series. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Vukovic, B., Black, J., Dyjur, P., Havel, A., Kennette, L., & Lackeyram, D. (2023). Universal Design in Canadian higher education. In J. W. Madaus & L. L. Dukes III (Eds.), Handbook of Higher Education and Disability: Elgar Handbooks in Education Series. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Kang, J., Chan, A. D., Trudel, C. M. J., Vukovic, B., & Girouard, A. (2023). A longitudinal evaluation of the impact of a graduate student accessibility training on student learning outcomes. In Proceedings of the 25th Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education (WCCCE ’23).

Kang, J., Chan, A. D., Trudel, C. M. J., Vukovic, B., & Girouard, A. (2021). Diversifying accessibility education: Presenting and evaluating an interdisciplinary accessibility training program. In Proceedings of the 21st Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research.

Standards, systems, and applied accessibility research

Laska, B., Goubran, R., Vukovic, B., Wallace, B., Ault, L., & Laghai, A. (2026). Enabling Independence: Assessing Activities of Daily Living to Inform Safety Standards for Built Environments. Final Research Report. Accessibility Institute, ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University.

Masson, P., Milne, K., Wallace, B., Laska, B., Goubran, R., Vukovic, B., & Knoefel, F. (2025). Supportive systems for cognitive health and dementia: Survey of technology and the role of standards. Accessibility Institute, ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University.

Laska, B., Goubran, R., Vukovic, B., Wallace, B., Hirotani, M., & Ault, L. (2023). Informing Standards for Acoustics and the Built Environment: Final research report. Accessibility Institute, ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University.

Butler, S., Connolly, T., Vukovic, B., Mantler, J., Schweitzer, L., & Godden, L. (2021). Career transitions and accessibility in the Canadian federal public service: Final research report. READ Initiative.

Vukovic, B., Caldwell, J., & Connolly, T. (2020). David C. Onley Initiative for employment and enterprise development: Final report. READ Initiative.