I am the Electronic Information Technology Accessibility Manager in Cornell University’s central IT. In my role at Cornell, I manage the two (soon to be three) main digital accessibility programs, which focus on university-controlled web properties and on reviewing 3rd party vended products at use across the university. My team acts as a digital accessibility support resource for the entire university, performing digital accessibility reviews, creating and delivering training, and offering guidance to everyone who needs it. A major aspect of our work is helping others at the university incorporate accessibility-supporting practices into their normal workflows. Accessibility is not a one-team process–anyone whose daily work can affect accessibility levels has to be aware of how to make what they do more accessible.

Physical and digital accessibility are critical to an inclusive culture and an inclusive society as a whole. No one should be blocked from doing their everyday activities because others have built something without thinking about the entire user base, not just the median user base. People are not edge cases. Universal design is mandatory and we must do better.

Though I’ve left the teaching side of academia, I have 17 years’ experience designing and teaching courses at the college level. I have the research and analytical skills of an R1 PhD (though not the finished dissertation), and strong, adaptable editorial skills. Because most of my teaching career has been focused on teaching composition, I am also extremely skilled at asking the right questions to help others find the answers and solutions they need, even when they originally thought they wanted something else, a skill I put to use frequently in my current job.

I am also a musician, primarily a harpist, but also a singer, violinist, arranger, and composer. My main musical focus is western European traditional music with a particular focus on Scottish traditional music, thanks to my dad’s interest in our family’s Scottish roots (not that any of our forebears have been in Scotland since the 18th century!). I also work a bit in medieval European styles of music as well as traditional and medieval-influenced new compositions.