Resumé

Objective

Make emerging technologies accessible to people with disabilities by identifying user experience and technical challenges and developing solutions that move the global technology industry forward in meaningful ways for users in all parts of the world and with any challenges.

Summary

• Co-chair of Accessibility In The Metaverse Working Group in the Metaverse Standards Forum.
• Editor of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (versions 2.0 - 2.2), a worldwide benchmark for web accessibility.
• Editor of Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) (versions 1.0 - 1.2), a technology to allow assistive technology to interact with web content.
• Managed Bobby, the first web accessibility checking tool, and helped create the web accessibility evaluation industry by leading colleagues from other organizations towards an open and standards-based approach.
• Experienced working in global, multilingual, and multicultural environments.
• Languages: English native, French intermediate, German and American Sign Language beginner.
• Based in Ottawa, Canada, with citizenship and work authorization both in Canada and the United States.

Experience

Aihal Accessibility, Ottawa, ON.

January 2023 - present

Accessibility consultancy offering:

• Assistance with interpretation and application of accessibility guidance
• Develop strategies to work accessibility by design into organizational cultures
• Identify accommodations for people with lesser-known disabilities, and help bring those accommodations to technologies and standards
• Build mutual understanding between people with disabilities, content designers, and technology developers
• Engage with the Deaf community as an accessibility generalist

Accessible Community, Paeonian Springs, VA.

Digital Accessibility Framework Lead

August 2023 - present

• Helped conceive and design the Digital Accessibility Framework, a top-down approach to expand knowledge of accessibility needs for user groups that that are under-represented in current guidelines and practice.
• Worked with accessibility experts to document a comprehensive set of human needs and content affordances, that when intersected help to predict accessibility requirements.
• Developed a taxonomy and implemented a RDF graph to store data in a flexible and inferrable manner, with a web front-end to produce views meaningful for understanding.

MIT / W3C, Cambridge, MA.

Web Accessibility Specialist / Web Accessibility Technical Lead / Accessibility Strategy and Technical Lead

June 2006 - July 2023

• Provided content, editorial, and technical expertise reflected in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0.
• Managed the processes of obtaining wide review and obtaining consensus in various types of publications, and provided technical and editorial quality assurance.
• Helped contribute accessibility features or guidance to many web technologies through systematic review and comment on specifications, and direct engagement with groups developing them.
• Supported mainstream understanding of accessibility needs by helping to conceive and develop a set of widely referenced Accessibility User Needs documents that provide details of accessibility requirements.
• Provided strategic leadership identifying the impacts of technology changes and emerging user needs.
• Helped conceive and incubate the project that is now W3C Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3.0, with a new approach recognizing changes in technology in the past decade.
• Engaged with representatives of diverse user groups, finding ways to authentically understand perspectives, advocate with less-heard voices, and contribute to mutual understanding in group discussions.
• Represented the organization via keynote and other presentations at academic and industry conferences.

Watchfire, Ottawa, ON.

Accessibility Project Manager

August 2002 - June 2006

• Led the redevelopment of the Bobby product developed at CAST (see below) into Watchfire’s WebXM tool.
• Continued to provide industry leadership in the development of web content accessibility testing approaches and helping define testability of accessibility guidelines.
• Worked with customers to understand their business needs, support deployment of the product, provide best practices training, and design and implement customizations as needed.

CAST, Peabody, MA.

Bobby Project Manager / Technical Designer

June 1998 - August 2002

• Managed continued development of Bobby, the first Web accessibility evaluation tool. Collaborated with developers of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 to ensure Bobby’s tests harmonized with the WCAG 1.0 guidance.
• Supported the organization to use XML and XSLT technologies in a early digital book format with support to implement UDL principles in content.
• Developed ways to apply Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to early web design capabilities.
• Developed content and design for the organization’s early web site, to provide content both about and as an example of UDL principles.

University of Denver, Denver, CO.

Disability Services Technology Specialist

September 1993 - August 1997

• Coordinated accessibility accommodations for students and employees with disabilities.
• Managed data from a campus accessibility survey to help prioritize building improvements.
• Provided technical expertise for the library of assistive technologies, and instructed students in their use.
• Produced accessible formats of materials for students, with early adoption of the emerging Web for this purpose.

Education

Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA

Master of Education (Ed.M.)

June 1998

Emphasis on administration, community development, and technology in education.

University of Denver, Denver, CO

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)

June 1998

Major in Psychology, minors in Music and History.

Languages

• English - Primary fluency
• French - Professional working proficiency
• German - Elementary proficiency
• American Sign Language (ASL) - Elementary proficiency

Skills

Technical skills

• Data formats: RDF, OWL, JSON, yaml
• Document formats: HTML, XML, CSS, markdown
• Programming environments: JavaScript, Java, php, XSLT

Soft skills

• Knowledge of intersection between users and technology
• Ability to perceive connections between topics
• Analysis and clarification of technical misunderstandings
• Support people to express and develop their own skills

Selected publications

• “Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Web Accessibility: Is Conformance Evaluation a Way Forward?”, in W4A '18: Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference, April 2018
• “Web Standards to Enable an Accessible and Inclusive Internet of Things (IoT)”, in W4A '17: Proceedings of the 14th International Web for All Conference, April 2017
• “Web accessibility guidelines for the 2020s”, in W4A '16: Proceedings of the 13th International Web for All Conference, April 2016
• “Accessibility of emerging rich web technologies: web 2.0 and the semantic web”, in W4A '07: Proceedings of the 2007 international cross-disciplinary conference on Web accessibility (W4A), May 2007
• “Case study: localization of an accessibility evaluation”, in CHI EA '01: CHI '01 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, March 2001
• “Automated evaluation of accessibility guidelines”, in HCI 2001: 150-154
• “Accessibility Issues for Universal Design”, in CADUI 1999: 33-42