Wanda Díaz-Merced was always interested in science and had planned to study medicine, but lost her sight in her early twenties due to complications with degenerative diabetic retinopathy. She began studying astrophysics and earned her PhD from the University of Glasgow in 2013. Díaz-Merced pioneered the use of data sonification, which is the conversion of scientific data into sound. Her research has shown that sonification can reveal patterns in data that could potentially be obscured in visual and graphical represesntation. This technique also makes astronomy more accessible to researchers with visual disabilities. She has become an international leader in promoting equal access to astronomy, no matter a person’s disability.
