On May 20, 2024, approximately 150 researchers, students, and partners participated in the discussion and discovery of CREATE’s Community Day 2024. Two hybrid panel discussions covered timely topics on disability and accessibility.
Thank you to all our presenters, volunteers, and attendees for making this year’s Community Day such a success! We look forward to sharing video and takeaways from the day.
Panel 1: Disability and Data: Access and Inequalities
An exploration of the positive and negative roles data plays in the lives of people with disabilities and other minority communities.
- Anat Caspi, Director and Co-founder, The Taskar Center for Accessible Technology and associate director, CREATE.
- Marika Cifor, assistant professor, UW iSchool. Affiliate faculty, AfterLab, Datalab, and the Technology and Social Change Lab.
- Kimberly Meck, Executive Director, Disability Empowerment Center
- Sunshine Cheng, Public Policy Liaison for Disability Rights Washington (DRW) and graduating senior in the Law, Justice, and Societies program at the UW
Panel 2: Title II of the ADA: Rule changes and their impact on education
An exploration of how changes to Title II of the American Disabilities Act, Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability in State and Local Government Services, will impact public education, including the UW. Panelists included:
- Mary Craig, Chief Information Officer, WA State Department of Services for the Blind
- John B. Dorris, Continuing Education Coordinator, Northwest ADA Center
- Adiam Tesfay, Director, UW Disability Resources for Students
- Erin Trieber, Assistive Technology Specialist, Bellevue School District
Research Showcase co-sponsored by HuskyADAPT
After the panel discussions, the Allen Atrium was filled with the amazing work that CREATE students and postdocs and the design teams of HuskyADAPT have done in the field of accessible technology this semester.
Attendees browsed the projects, tried out the new technologies, and asked questions of the researchers themselves. Projects included an accessible library interface, a wheelchair umbrella, and how people who use visual accessibility technology experience deceptive design. Learn more about the showcase projects: Spring 2024 Research Showcase.