Biographies
Group Members
We are currently looking to expand the membership of the group to other significant stakeholder groups. If you have a recommendation for membership or a group that we should include in the process please contact the Chair of the project Ron Stewart
AHEAD Members
Ron Stewart
ron@ahead.org
Ron Stewart currently works in our community in a variety of voluntary capacities; Technology Advisor to AHEAD (Association on Higher Education and Disability), Chairs the AHEAD E-Text Solutions Group and is the Postsecondary Educational representative on the NIMAS Development Committee. In 2003 Ron was the driving force in the founding of the Access Technologist Higher Education Network (athenpro.org), and serves as the organizations President. Ron left Oregon State University in 2006 to take the position of VP for Operations for Dolphin Computer Access (yourdolphin.com) and in that capacity is leading a variety of efforts on an international level on curricular access for students with print related disabilities including the Altformat.com effort to establish an international clearing house for information related to Alt Format and DAISY materials production.
Ron Stewart was the founding Director of the Northwest Center for Technology Access at Oregon State University. Ron has worked in the field of Educational Technology for over 20 years, and for the last ten years was the Director of the Technology Access Program at Oregon State University. Ron established at OSU a program focused on access to educational technology for at-risk learners that quickly become a national model. Ron's expertise is in the area of educational technology access and distance education program development, with an emphasis on the implementation of emerging technologies and the development of inclusive educational environment. Ron consults extensively with regional and national educational systems on the development of fully accessible technology environments, systemic and institutional culture change, and universally accessible building and program design.
Ron was the reciepient of the AHEAD Ron Blosser Award in 2007. The Blosser Award is a distiguished service award and was given for Ron's work in regards to Access Technologies and Curricular Access within the AHEAD membership.
Gaeir Dietrich
gdietrich@htctu.net
Alternate media training specialist/instructor for the High Tech Center Training Unit of the California community colleges, located at De Anza College in Cupertino, California. Previously, Gaeir spent 15 years as the visually impaired specialist for Cabrillo College DSP&S, where her duties included producing Braille, large print, and books on tape, as well as teaching Braille to blind students. In addition, she has worked as a high tech center specialist and the assistant lab manager of the campus computer lab.
Gaeir also spent almost 8 years in the publishing industry, as first an editor and then the senior editor and production manager for Critical Thinking Books & Software, a publishing company best known for their MindBenders books and software. While at CTB&S, she co-authored a number of books and software products, including ThinkAnalogy Puzzles, Get Me Out of Here!, and Editor in Chief, all of which are used in the learning centers of various community colleges throughout California.
Khaki Wunderlich
wunderk@sunytccc.edu
Khaki has worked in disability services for students in higher education since 1990 at Tompkins Cortland Community College, Dryden, NY and is currently Associate Dean of Learning Support and Organizational Development. She is a past president of the SUNY Disability Services Council and currently Chairperson of their Alternate Format Committee and is a member of the New York State Chapter 219 Advisory Committee. She regularly presents at the state and national level and has played a lead role in training and development of local and national e-text solutions and resource materials to meet student, DSS provider, and publisher needs, including a handbook for DSS providers.
Jim Kessler
jrkessler@email.unc.edu
Jim Kessler has been involved with working with persons with disabilities since the spring of 1970. Although for the past 23 years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and director of Disability Services since 1996, he as worked for private, state, and the Veteran’s Administration in services for blind and visually impaired. In 1984 he worked with technicians in the University’s computer center to link a desktop computer, Kurzweil Reading Machine and electronic Braille embosser (Triformation) to the University’s mainframe computer. He is a charter member and has been president of the state affiliate (NCAHEAD). As president of AHEAD, he initiate the first “round table” discussion bout E-text between the publishing industry, university disability service providers and representatives from RFB&D and BookShare which has continue to address the issues of access, ownership and ethics.
Invited Contributors
Jim Fruchterman
Jim.F@Benetech.org
Jim Fruchterman founded the innovative nonprofit organization Benetech in 2000. Since then, two of Benetech’s major projects, Bookshare.org and Martus, have been launched independently. While starting two successful technology companies, Jim became increasingly frustrated that ideas for socially beneficial technology applications were dropped when huge financial returns weren’t attainable. Jim forged a vision: to show the technology community how to bridge the gap between possibility and profitability to serve disadvantaged communities, bringing tools to the people who need them most.
With this in mind, he launched Benetech in 2000 and used the nonprofit to launch two separate initiatives. The first, Bookshare.org, has become the world’s largest online library of books (more than 15,000 in all) for people with disabilities. The second, Martus, is a technology that enables human rights workers to securely collect and disseminate information on violations, helping activists fight injustice in 50 countries. Jim is a serial entrepreneur and serial social entrepreneur. In 1989, he founded a nonprofit, Arkenstone, that became the world’s largest provider of reading systems for individuals with disabilities, serving 35,000 individuals in 60 countries. He used all proceeds from the sale of Arkenstone’s operations to launch Benetech.
Jeff Senge
jsenge@fullerton.edu
Tthe founder and coordinator of the Information & Computer Access Program at California State University, Fullerton. He was the co-project director of the Braille Transcription Center Project and co-authored “Preparing for College and Beyond, A Guide for Students with Visual Impairments.” During his nearly 20 years in the field of adaptive technology and information access, he has authored numerous articles and presented at many professional conferences.
His work for the past ten years has focused on improving information accessibility for persons with disabilities in postsecondary education. Jeff has conducted campus-wide as well as state-wide research studies in this area. He has provided assessment and consultant services for the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights as well as the California State University and the California Community Colleges.
George Kerscher
kerscher@montana.com
Dedicated to developing technology to make information not only accessible, but fully functional in the hands of persons who are blind and disabled. He himself is blind, and started to develop computer-based information technology in 1987. He has proven to be a tireless advocate of structured markup, such as XML, in information systems that simultaneously serve both the mainstream population and persons with disabilities.
George Kerscher coined the term "print disabled" to describe people who cannot effectively read print because of a visual, physical, perceptual, developmental, cognitive, or learning disability. He believes and advocates that in the Information Age, access to information is a fundamental human right. He also believes that properly designed information systems can make all information accessible to all people, and is working to push the evolving technologies in that direction.
Currently, George Kerscher is Senior Officer of Accessible Information at Recording For the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D in the USA, Secretary General for the DAISY Consortium, Chairperson of the Board of Directors for the Open eBook Forum (OeBF), and Co-chair of the Steering Council of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
Steve Noble
steven@dessci.com
Steve is Director of Accessibility Policy for Design Science, Inc., where he is promoting national math accessibility policy efforts. Past employment includes leading State accessibility initiatives as Policy Analyst for the Kentucky Assistive Technology program, and serving as Manager of Product Development for Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic. Mr. Noble received his MPA in Public Policy at the University of Louisville. He serves on the national Board of Directors for the Learning Disabilities Association of America, serves as Editor-in-Chief for the journal Information Technology and Disabilities, and is a member of the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) Development Committee.