Bios
Meet the TA Study Away Silicon Valley Planning Team!
Laura Allen, Google
Laura Allen is the Accessibility Program Manager for the Chrome and Chrome OS teams at Google. She collaborates with the engineers, designers, and product managers to make the Chrome family of products accessible and usable across platforms, for people of all abilities. In addition, Laura serves on the board of directors for the San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Due to her personal experience with low vision, she believes that technology has more power now than ever to transform lives, and progressing accessibility has become her true passion. For her undergraduate education, Laura studied International Business, Marketing, and Music at Georgetown University.
Mary Bellard, Microsoft
Mary Bellard is the Senior Accessibility Architect at Microsoft. There, she leads the accessibility innovation program to bring more inclusive and revolutionary ideas to market. Previously, she strategized the overall accessibility training curriculum for employees and external partners to drive progress in usable experiences for everyone. Mary played a key role in developing the Microsoft Disability Answer Desk when she joined the company in 2014 and has worked as an advocate for the disability community for more than 10 years.
Amy Chen, Adobe
Amy Chen is a Product Manager for Experience Cloud Accessibility at Adobe. She works with developers, quality engineering, product managers, documentation writers, and other teams to help make products better for people with disabilities. Amy previously worked as a Product Manager for Accessibility at Workday and as a Principal Usability Engineer for Accessibility at Oracle. She has over fifteen years of experience in the usability and accessibility fields, and she has a Master of Science in Information degree specializing in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Michigan.
Jiatyan Chen, Stanford University
Jiatyan Chen is the Stanford Online Accessibility Program (SOAP) Manager, providing directions and resources to improve the accessibility and usability of Stanford's websites and courses. Prior to Stanford, she held positions as Coordinator for Web Accessibility, Digital Content Manager, Instructional Designer, and Producer at Michigan State University. She has experience in web, course, interactive media design, development and production. Her interests are usability, problem solving, games, learning, and leadership. She holds degrees in computer science and digital media arts.
Phil Deaton, Michigan State University
Phil Deaton is the Digital Accessibility Coordinator at Michigan State University. He is responsible for MSU's web accessibility policy on campus, and helps to guide and support accessibility initiatives campus-wide leading a network of over 100 liaisons, and between organizations. Phil has done accessibility work in higher ed, corporate, research, and consulting roles, and likes to start new accessibility ideas, programs, and gatherings. In addition, he teaches an interdisciplinary disability studies seminar for freshman at Michigan State University. Phil researches disability in society, education, pop culture, and on the web.
Ted Drake, Intuit
Ted Drake is the Principal Accessibility Engineer for Intuit and manages accessibility across Intuit’s products and services. Ted co-founded Intuit’s Special Needs and Abilities Network for employees, or their family members, with a disability. Ted works closely with engineers, product managers, and designers to build accessibility into the core of Intuit. Prior to Intuit, Ted co-founded Yahoo’s Accessibility Lab and represented Yahoo as a Developer Evangelist. Tedwas on the board of Random Hacks of Kindness and helped manage global engineering hackathons. Ted has over 15 years of experience in accessible web development.
Jeff Dusek, Olin College of Engineering
Jeff Dusek is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Olin College of Engineering. He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Ocean Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he taught courses and mentored projects in assistive technology. Jeff is the leader of the Laboratory for Adaptation, Inclusion, and Robotics at Olin College where he pursues his research interests in accessibility, personal mobility, and underwater robotics. He is especially interested in making engineering education more accessible to all students through the application of universal design principles to curriculum development and learning spaces. In addition, Jeff is passionate about adaptive recreation and sports, and is an active sighted guide for visually impaired runners and triathletes.
Larry Goldberg, Oath
Larry Goldberg is Senior Director of Accessible Media at Oath where he is responsible for ensuring that Oath's many media offerings are as accessible as possible to people with disabilities. Oath brands (Yahoo Finance, News, Sports and Lifestyle; AOL, Huffington Post, Engadget, Tech Crunch, Makers, BUILD, and many others) produce dozens of daily original programs - virtually all of which are closed captioned. He is a co-founder of Teach Access, the industry-academia-disability advocacy collaboration dedicated to bringing the teaching of accessible technology design and development to higher education. Larry joined Oath (formerly Yahoo) in June of 2014, having previously worked at WGBH Boston, where he founded and directed its National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM). NCAM focused on research and development, public policy initiatives and strategic partnerships for global impact on inclusive media and technology. He was directly involved in such ground-breaking legislation as the TV Decoder Circuitry Act, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. He led efforts to create standards adopted by media organizations and the FCC to implement legislated mandates for accessible technology.
Li Liu, CSUN
Li Liu, Ph.D. is currently an Assistant Professor with The Department of Computer Science at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). He is passionate about enabling accessibility of computing. His research breaks barriers created by computing technology, especially for people with special needs. At CSUN, he co-directs the Human Computing Lab and serves on the Scientific/Research Committee of the annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference. He also develops a new master’s degree program in Assistive Technology Engineering.
Dave Moon, California State University, Northridge
Dave Moon is currently serving as an art professor at California State University, Northridge and director of RADIUS, an on-campus student enterprise focusing on brand strategy. Prior to his current appointments, he served as chair of the Art Department and Interim Dean of CSUN’s Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication. Dave founded or co-founded a number of student-based creative enterprises, including the Center for Visual Communication (VISCOM), DesignHub, META+LAB, and RADIUS. He has always been focused on student learning and creating innovative spaces that encourage collaborative learning via a “learn-by-doing” model, and he has developed a handbook to assist other educational institutions in replicating the model to further connect education with industry. Dave utilizes design thinking and a universal design framework to continue and expand the conversation about accessibility from the graphic designer’s perspective.
Paul Ruvolo, Olin College
Paul Ruvolo is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Olin College of Engineering. Paul leads the Olin College Crowdsourcing and Machine Learning Laboratory where he and his students work with co-designers who are disabled to create technologies and solutions to improve access. Paul is excited about the ways in which computer science can be leveraged to create a better and more inclusive world. To this end, Paul develops courses and learning experiences that place computer science in an interdisciplinary context, highlighting the ways in which computing can be leveraged to solve difficult problems.
Kate Sonka, Michigan State University
Kate Sonka is the Assistant Director of Academic Technology at the College of Arts & Letters. She holds an M.Ed. in Bilingual/Bicultural Education and a TESOL certificate from DePaul University. Her areas of scholarly interest include second language acquisition and the role of language in identity development, and she is especially interested in how technology and experiential learning intersect through both accessibility and study abroad/away programs. She has taught a variety of courses including first year writing for non-native English speakers, a study away to explore the creative industries in Los Angeles, and a course on language acquisition as part of a study abroad to Chengdu, China. She is the founder and director of the Accessible Learning Conference at Michigan State University.
Shea Tanis, University of Colorado
Dr. Shea Tanis is the Acting Executive Director of the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities at the University of Colorado. The mission of the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities is to catalyze and integrate advances in technology to promote quality of life for people with cognitive disabilities and their families. Dr. Tanis is also on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus where she has published articles and investigated the definition of intellectual disability; the measurement of adaptive behavior and support needs; the construct of self-determination; federally funded supports and services for people with IDD and their families; family and professional partnerships; and self-directed employment strategies. She is nationally recognized for her expertise in applied cognitive technology supports, cognitive accessibility, and advancing the rights of people with cognitive disabilities to technology and information access.
Jeffrey Wieland, Facebook
Jeffrey Wieland is the Director of Accessibility at Facebook. His team is responsible for making it possible for anyone, regardless of ability, to access the information and connections that happen on Facebook. He is also a co-founder of Teach Access, an academic and industry partnership to embed accessibility into education programs for students of technology. He has spent the past five years building out Facebook’s engineering and operations accessibility program, and routinely speaks about how to conquer the challenges of accessibility at scale.