Assistant Professor, Department of Information Sciences

Email: [email protected]
Phone: 616-331-7731
Office: DCIH 530K

Education
Ph.D. in Spatial Information Science & Engineering, University of Maine, 2023

Dr. Paul D. S. Fink is an Assistant Professor in the College of Computing and an expert in accessibility, human-centered computing, and multisensory information processing. His research focuses on inclusive technologies, including autonomous vehicle systems, nonvisual navigation tools, mid-air haptics, and AI-powered interaction design. He has secured over $1.1 million in competitive funding and collaborated with partners such as the Toyota Research Institute and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Dr. Fink teaches human-computer interaction, user interface design, and accessibility.

In the Fall 2025 semester, he launched the Wayfinding, Accessible Interaction, and Virtual Environment (WAIVE) Lab to further inclusive computing research and education.

• Peters, J. W., Perry, R. J., Kireburns, K., & Fink, P. D. (2025, November). Keeping It Clean: A VR Simulation for Dental Sterilization. In Proceedings of the 2025 31st ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (pp. 1-3).
• Brown, J. R., Fink, P. D., Movalia, R. M., Kastelein, M. E., James, K. J., Corey, R. R., & Giudice, N. A. (2025). Augmented Information in the Driving Environment: Increasing Pedestrian Safety with Augmented Reality Indicators for Older Adult Drivers in Maine.
• Fink, P. D., Brown, J. R., Coombs, R., Hamby, E. A., James, K. J., Harris, A., ... & Giudice, N. A. (2025). Dude, Where's My (Autonomous) Car? Defining an Accessible Description Logic for Blind and Low Vision Travelers Using Autonomous Vehicles. arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.14911.
• Fink, P. D., Brown, J. R., Kutzer, K. M., & Giudice, N. A. (2025). Does trust even matter? Behavioral evidence for the disconnect between people’s subjective trust and decisions to use autonomous vehicles. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 114, 99-117.
• Riccardi, J. S., Fink, P. D., Brown, J. R., & Murray-James, H. (2025). Speech-Language Pathologists' Perspectives On Virtual Reality for Childhood Traumatic Brain Injury. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 1-15.
• Riccardi, J. S., Fink, P. D., Brown, J. R., & Murray-James, H. (2025). Speech-Language Pathologists' Perspectives On Virtual Reality for Childhood Traumatic Brain Injury. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 1-15.
• Meinhardt, L. M., Weilke, L. M., Elhaidary, M., von Abel, J., Fink, P. D., Rietzler, M., ... & Rukzio, E. (2025, April). Light My Way: Developing and Exploring a Multimodal Interface to Assist People With Visual Impairments to Exit Highly Automated Vehicles. In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-20).
• Fink, P . D. S., Milne, H., Caccese, A., Alsamsam, M., Loranger, J., Colley, M., & Giudice, N. A. (2024). Accessible Maps for the Future of Inclusive Ridesharing. In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutoUI '24). https://doi.org/10.1145/3640792.3675736.
• Fink, P . D. S. (2024). Multisensory Communication of Real-Time Decision State-Space Visualizations in Autonomous Vehicles. In AutomotiveUI 2024 Workshop, W12 – Symbiotic: A Workshop on Transferability between Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and Autonomous Vehicle Interaction Research.
• Bennett, C. R., Fink, P . D. S., & Giudice, N. A. (2024). “X-Ray Vision” as a Compensatory Augmentation for Slowing Cognitive Map Decay in Older Adults. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘24). https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642644. (Acceptance rate 26.3%).
• Fink, P . D. S., Doore, S. A., Lin, X., Maring, M., Zhao, P ., Nygaard, A., Beals, G., Corey, R. R., Perry, R. J., Freund, K., Dimitrov, V ., & Giudice, N. A. (2023). The Autonomous Vehicle Assistant (AVA): Emerging technology design supporting blind and visually impaired travelers in autonomous transportation. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2023.103125
• Fink, P . D. S., Alsamsam, M., Brown, J. R., Kindler, H. D., & Giudice, N. A. (2023). Give us something to chauffeur it: Exploring user needs in traditional and fully autonomous ridesharing for people who are blind or visually impaired. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 98, 91–103.
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2023.09.004

• NIH: Project MultiNav: A gamified multisensory training and navigation system for blind and visually impaired people. Co-I. 2025 
• NIH: VisionWay: Accessibility-aware Path Selection for Wayfinding. Co-I. 2025
• MaineDOT: Augmented Information in the Driving Environment. Co-PI. 2024.
• USDOT: The Autonomous Vehicle Assistant. Co-PI. 2022. 
• USDOT: Ride-hailing and Localization for Accessible Mobility. Co-PI. 2020.
• NSF Grant CHS-1910603: Improving User Trust of Autonomous Vehicles. Key personnel. 2019.