Nicole Torcolini

Nicole is a senior at Stanford University majoring in Computer Science with a focus in Human Computer Interaction. She lost most of her sight about four months after her fourth birthday due to cancer, but she has never let this stop her from doing things such as horseback riding, playing the violin, and taking AP classes. While still in high school, Nicole designed and authored the Nemetex Nemeth Back-TranslatorT, a software application which translates visually incomprehensible Braille math (Nemeth) that is produced on an electronic Braille note-taker into easily-readable print, and started her own small business to market it.

Nicole was one of the 2011 recipients of the Google Lime Scholarship, as well as numerous other scholarships and awards throughout high school and college, including the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) Award for Aspirations in Computing, and Microsoft's You Can Make a Difference (YCMD) Award. She completed summer internships in the Accessibility Departments of Microsoft and Yahoo!, as well as a Distributed Research Experiences for Undergraduates (DREU) summer research program in the University of Washington Center for Technology and Disability Studies.

She has provided volunteer support in technology/software accessibility issues to Benetech a Silicon Valley non-profit which uses technology innovation and business expertise to solve unmet social needs, as well as to a NASA project to add features to the Math Description Engine (MDE), which is graphing software which can convey the shape of graphs aurally.