Curriculum Vitae

Accessibility and Disability Advocate | Community Engagement Champion | Accessibility Program Manager

Professional Experience

Facilitator for Accessible Digital Document training sessions with the Toronto Public Library.

Manage the University’s central AccessMac Program / accessibility portfolio, including:

Consulting and supporting strategic accessibility leadership at the university through McMaster’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategic Framework.
Developing and consulting on centralized accessibility / AODA institutional policy and multi-year plans.
Creating and communicating accessibility and disability-inclusion focused public education and consultation opportunities across campus.
Developing asynchronous and resources for ongoing accessibility skill development and workflow adaptation.
Engaging with and building disability community among McMaster students, staff and faculty with disabilities, including as Coordinator of McMaster’s Employee Accessibility Network.
Coordinating and continuing to grow the AccessMac Program’s Pilot User Testing Team, comprised of AT users with disabilities, to support accessible end-user testing for key McMaster web environments.
Developing disability inclusion-focused academic and employment opportunities to inform instructional accessibility work and to enhance a growing peer support network for McMaster employees.
Compiling, editing and highlighting accessibility and disability inclusion work descriptions / submissions across campus to McMaster’s Annual Accessibility Report and community-focused Accessibility and Disability Inclusion Update.
Maintaining McMaster’s central Accessibility Hub website.

Role details here.

Educational Experience

Ed details here.

The Chang School of Continuing Education – Ryerson University: Leadership in Accessibility and Inclusion

This course series provides a foundation of knowledge on accessibility and inclusion and builds on this through courses on legislation, digital accessibility, employment, and public space design.

The Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) Program is a comprehensive three-tiered instructor development program that serves as the foundation for several professional development activities.

Activities and societies:

Resource designer for Introduction to Mohawk 1Z03 at McMaster University
MSU Maccess student group for disability advocacy and support (2016-17)
Cooperative of Indigenous Studies Students and Alumni (CISSA) Co-founder/Member (2015)
Food Not Bombs/OPIRG Working Group (2014)

Awards:

Received position of Student Scholar (2015) through the Paul. R. MacPherson Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Excellence in Teaching
Received Undergraduate Student Research Award (2015) through the Faculty of Humanities to carry out research on Iroquoian language revitalization and teaching methods.

Variety of courses encompassing areas of: English linguistics/grammar, TESL methodologies, French grammar/conversation, research methods Indigenous history, politics, medicine and film representation

Thesis (Supervisor Dr. Rick Monture): A Call to Universities: Supporting Indigenous Language and Language Revitalization Programs.

Ed details here.

Activities and societies:

Tierra del Fuego Community House member (2009-2012)
Tierra del Fuego house cook and community meal organizer (2012)
Bishop’s University Pride Association (BUPA) club member (2012)
Cultural Kitchen Founder/Manager/Participant (2010-2012)
Modern Languages Club President (2010-2011)
Golden Key Invitee (2009-2011)

Publications

The Accessibility and Disability Inclusion Update is a collective campus community publication facilitated through the Equity and Inclusion Office, which highlights and celebrates the Accessibility and Disability Inclusion work that takes place at McMaster University on an annual basis.

While partnership is widely encouraged as an approach to advancing the inclusion of disabled postsecondary students, these collaborations are largely taking place between staff offices and failing to meaningfully integrate disabled students as partners. In this case study, we describe the successes and challenges of a pilot project where students and staff with and without disabilities worked together to user test our university’s accessibility website, to which faculty/staff are regularly directed for resources on making their teaching more accessible. We achieved our goal of compiling results into a report for decision-makers in order to advance campus-wide technological accessibility. Instead of primarily treating disabled students as lacking capacities and requiring programmatic intervention to succeed in the university, a partnership approach validates and draws on disabled students’ specific expertise and experience to make institutional change.

Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice is a collection of visionary essays on vibrant organizing for Disability Justice that is gathering momentum across the unceded and occupied Indigenous territories in North America. Like the title suggests, the book is a ‘dream’ of a truly accessible and inclusive future for (everyone, but especially) sick and disabled Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (QTBIPOC). Although Piepzna-Samarasinha is listed as the author, the intellectual, emotional, and practical labour of numerous friends and colleagues is well acknowledged and clearly instrumental in this collective political project. Press-published writing on Disability Justice is only beginning to emerge, marking Care Work a crucial kind of historical archive.

A comprehensive guidebook to support instructors, Teaching Assistants, and those in other educational roles in applying Accessible Education principles across teaching and learning contexts to enhance access for all.

Curriculum Vitae

Professional Experience

Accessibility Training Facilitator - Toronto Public Library

Accessibility Program Manager - McMaster University

Accessibility Projects Coordinator - McMaster University

Educational Experience

Strategic Leaders Program - McMaster University Continuing Education

Course Series in Leadership in Accessibility and Inclusion - Toronto Metropolitan University

Instructional Skills Workshop Program - McMaster University

Honours Bachelor's Degree, Indigenous Studies and Linguistics - McMaster University

TEFL Certification, Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language - University of Toronto

Certificate in Intermediate French (Explore Program) - Université de Sherbrooke

Bachelor's Degree (Transfer), Modern Languages - Bishop's University

Publications

Accessibility and Disability Inclusion Update

Students with disabilities as partners: A case study on user testing an accessibility website.

Book Review: Care work: dreaming disability justice

Forward with Flexibility: A Teaching and Learning Resource on Accessibility and Inclusion

Honours and Awards

CUCCIO Community Award for Amplifying Digital Accessibility in Education at McMaster University

The Management Group (TMG) Performance Excellence Program

President’s Award for Outstanding Service - Nominee

President’s Award for Community Engaged Scholarship

Linguistics and Languages Prize

The University Scholarship

The University Achievement Award