Digital Accessibility

Ian Kersey, Thomson Reuters, Senior Accessibility Specialist Ian Kersey supports the designers in customer-facing products at Thomson Reuters.  That includes adding annotations to Figma prototypes and making sure developers have everything they need. Starting in an accessibility office at a community college, Ian continued his career with accessibility consulting, including working at Level A...

Lorelei Root, Eagle's Flight, Digital Accessibility Specialist Lorelei Root digital accessibility focus with a focus on video games. She shares her experience of becoming disabled due to multiple sclerosis. Having to learn to speak, read and write again, she used the few accessible video games to help provide the road back. This led her to her work consulting about and evangelizing the need for ac...

Rich Schwerdtfeger, Retired, IBM, Former Chief Technology Officer for Accessibility Rich began his work in accessibility with the early development of a screen reader for Windows. He was a key member of the world-wide team that brought technologies like ARIA into mainstream use for accessibility. Rich chaired the board of Knowbility and currently is President and Creator at A Diver's Life YouTube...

Charlie Turrell, BBC, Change Manager - Accessibility Champions Network Charlie onboards product development staff about accessibility and evangelizes it throughout the BBC. Starting as a personal assistant in many sections of the BBC, she found her way into user experience and then to guiding the internal accessibility champions network.

Sam Ogami, HP, Accessibility Program Manager Sam shares his early personal experience having a learning disability that was helped with assistive technology. That coupled with his interest in technology sparked his lifelong work with accessibility. This included assisting university students with assistive technology and with accessible procurement of products for the institutions. Now at HP...

Betty Troy, Yahoo, Accessibility Specialist Betty Troy started her career through engineering with an emphasis on biomedical programs. That led to specializing in rehabilitation engineering and a position designing physical assistive technology devices for the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs. She further developed her skills as an accessibility auditor at Applause. Now she is an accessibility speci...

Jennison Asuncion, LinkedIn, Head, Accessibility Engineering Evangelism Jennison talks about his lived life being blind and growing up with an interest in computer technology. He describes his challenges in getting employment early on until he found a place at Royal Bank of Canada working with UX and web development and accessibility. That led to his current position as Head of Accessibility Engin...

Mary Jo Mueller, IBM, Worldwide Accessibility Standards Program Manager Mary Jo talks about her long career with accessibility at IBM. She talks about the challenges in supporting digital accessibility in a large, global organization. 

Richard Morton, Head of Accessibility for Government, UK Central Digital and Data Office Richard talks about his early work with usability testing that also exposed him to the opportunities working with accessibility. He describes the community and knowledge-sharing in the UK. Now he works for the UK Digital and Data Office where the team support accessibility in government organizations. 

Julie Romanowski, State Farm, Senior Digital Accessibility Specialist Starting out as a web developer, Julie is now supports a wide range of accessibility activities with State Farm. She takes about the efforts to help executive leadership understand the need for a digital accessibility team. Her team provides training and individual teams work on accessibility for their own roles. That include a...

Jeremy Katherman, USAA, Lead Accessibility Advisor Jeremy talks about his early work with accessibility through tech support at his university. After that he has enjoyed a lengthy career at USAA where he helped build an accessibility team that supports activities throughout the organization. 

Lainey Feingold, Author, Negotiator, Lawyer, Speaker at Law Office of Lainey Feingold Lainey describes her career as a legal advocate for people with disabilities. She talks about her process of structured negotiation to foster change without litigation. 

Christopher Land, Oracle, Senior Accessibility Technical Program Manager Chris started out in web development and was first exposed to accessibility working for the University of Michigan. That led to accessibility consulting work at Deque and Level Access where he learned from a great team of experts and did a lot of training. Now he is Senior Accessibility Technical Program Manager at Oracle.&nb...

Poornima Subramanian, Princess Cruises, Sr. Digital Accessibility SME Poornima talks about learning on the job about disabilities and getting started as a tester with assistive technologies. She moved into the role of subject matter expert and assisted developers to understand what was relevant to their role. Her work at Holland America merges digital accessibility with a user experience that take...

Glen Walker, TIAA, Principal Accessibility Architect Glen talks about his early years as a software engineer and his personal interest in keyboard support. This lead him to accessibility work that included solving screen reader issues and compliance with Section 508 and WCAG. In his consulting work he continues to help other developers by sharing knowledge in a variety of ways. 

Joanne Lastort, Booz Allen Hamilton, Digital Accessibility Specialist Joanne talks about her first career as a professional pastry chef. The loss of use one of her hands moved her to working in IT. Her desire to still be a keyboard user brought her into accessibility testing at the IRS and the FCC. Now she is part of the Section 508 team at Booz Allen Hamilton at the Department of Labor.

Zack Klein, iSoftStone, Software Test Engineer II Zack talks about his work as an accessibility tester and his unique perspective as a person who is totally blind. His love of technology helps him solve issues with the accessible content he relies on. He describes the tools he prefers including his Mac, iPhone and refreshable braille display.

Jen Devins, Google, Head Accessibility UX Jen talks about her journey into user experience and design and then an opportunity to work with accessibility. She considered accessibility from a UX perspective as a champion of the user. Jen describes how research helped to develop training to create more awareness about the need for accessibility. 

Andrew Hayward, Twitter, Accessibility Engineer Andrew Hayward talks about discovering accessibility in his early years as a web developer. He describes his path that weaved through Mozilla and most recently found him helping to set up an emerging accessibility team at Twitter. 

Nicole Bergstrom, Hilton, Senior Director of Digital Accessibility Nicole Bergstrom talks about her first exposure to accessibility while working in the federal government. She describes her move to Hilton and how they are building accessibility into all the touchpoints of their customers for digital services. 

Ricardo Rodriguez, independent Accessibility Consultant Ricardo Rodriguez talks about the challenges of growing up with extreme visual, mobility and cognitive challenges. He describes how a support system helped him adjust to those challenges and made it possible to become a professional accessibility practitioner. 

Natalie Patrice Tucker, Spotify, Senior Accessibility Lead Natalie Patrice Tucker talks about her early work as a political organizer in Washington, DC. She found her way into accessibility, first through work at the federal government, then into independent consulting. She talks about improving her skills through reading, networking, finding mentors, and conferences like CSUN. Now she is leading...

Chetan Bakhru, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Sr Accessibility Specialist Chetan Bakhru talks about the challenges of his early education as someone who was born totally blind. The emergence of accessible technologies made it possible for him to be independent in his studies and lead him into software engineering. His continued interest in technology and helping others brought to the National Industrie...

Lucy Greco, U. California - Berkeley, Electronic accessibility expert  Lucy Greco talks about always being a technology nerd and early adopter who is totally blind. Her first computer - an Apple IIe - transformed her ability to be successful with schoolwork. She started helping others during her college years, into consulting, and now back in the academic environment. She describes her work a...

Jack Nicolai, Adobe, Senior Product Manager, Accessibility Jack Nicolai talks about his experience working as a web developer in eLearning and then with accessibility at Starbucks. Now at Adobe, he describes how the compnay continues to build accessibility into their tools so that customers of all abilities are able to have an equitable experience.