Who we are

MaryKay Severino is an educator, project manager, small business owner, and innovator. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics/Business and a Master’s degree in Education, specifically Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. She spent her early career working in the business world in program management and marketing. Later she worked in K-12 schools and universities in Taiwan and South Korea and then in the Boston-area, with her education work always focused on inclusion. After leaving formal education, Ms. Severino supported NASA’s Space Science Education Consortium Phase 1, specifically the Eclipse Soundscapes Project as the Education & Exhibits Project Manager. For her contributions to the 2017 solar eclipse, she was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation by NASA Science Mission Directorate. She then co-founded the ARISA Lab with friend and business partner, Dr. Henry “Trae” Winter, where she serves as the Education Director. Currently, she is PI of Eclipse Soundscapes: 2.0 and Co-I on Eclipse Soundscapes: Citizen Science Project. All of the projects under the Eclipse Soundscapes umbrella put a primary focus on creating eclipse learning experiences that are inclusive and accessible for everyone, with a special focus on ensuring blind & low vision (BLV) accessibility.

Living abroad in both Europe and Asia for many years and her work as an ESL teacher and on Eclipse Soundscapes projects have given MaryKay a strong understanding of the challenges faced by anyone who communicates differently. As a result she is passionate about working with underrepresented communities to understand their needs, and continuously learning about, improving and sharing best practices related to making both formal and informal STEAM education accessible and more inclusive.

Trae is a solar astrophysicist who has worked on eight NASA missions observing the Sun. His primary research focus was understanding how energy is released in the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona, and in other stars. Trae spearheaded many efforts to engage the public in scientific discovery, including work with the Montana Space Grant Consortium, the Salish-Kootenai Flathead Lake Reservation, and the Boston Lyrical Opera.

To highlight the spectacular images being produced by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, Trae designed a series of video wall exhibits for the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, North Carolina State University’s Hunt Library, the Harvard Art Museums’ Lightbox Gallery, and the Museum of Boulder. However, Trae quickly realized that people who are blind and have low vision (BLV) had no access to the exhibits he was helping create. 

To make science accessible to everyone, Trae began Eclipse Soundscapes to build a mobile application that would engage all users with the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse. Consultants, who were themselves blind, were included at every stage of the application’s design process. The application used images, spoken word descriptions, sound, and touch to make eclipse features accessible and engaging to everyone as they were occurring.

Based on the success of the Eclipse Soundscapes Project model, Trae and MaryKay Severino founded the ARISA Lab which could quickly assemble highly trained and diverse teams to invent the new technologies and techniques necessary to make scientific exploration effective, accessible, and engaging for everyone.