Leadership

Middle age woman with silver hair and blue eyes

Rachael

Founder & Executive Director

Rachael has been working in disability-related education, inclusion, usability, and accessibility for over 20 years but when she developed chemical sensitivity a few years ago, she gained insight into just how much of day-to-day life takes place away from the larger organizations she typically supports. Rachael founded Accessible Community to connect people with disabilities to the communities around them.

Rachael is a digital accessibility specialist at the Library of Congress and an adjunct lecturer at the University of Maryland’s College of Information Studies (iSchool). She co-chairs the W3C Accessibility Guidelines Working Group and was previously a co-facilitator of the Cognitive and Learning Disabilities task force. Rachael has a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an M.S. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Middle age man with dark brown and gray hair, hazel eyes and glasses

Brian

Technical Director

As a Software Engineer and Architect with over 20 years of experience, Brian takes pride in his versatility as a technologist and a leader. He has experience in enterprise service architectures; microservice architectures and container orchestration; database modeling and design; web, mobile and desktop client development; and algorithm and requirements analysis. Brian has successfully led teams as a software architect, technical lead and customer interface throughout his career, working effectively with developers, managers and customers to solve complex requirements and challenges.

Woman with short, spiky, salt and pepper hair, blue eyes and glasses

Ellen

ta11y Project Manager

Ellen has long been an accessibility advocate and expert, serving as the Accessibility Technical Lead at a U.S. Government Agency. She helped to drive change within the Agency to foster an environment where information technology can enable and empower people with disabilities. Ellen helped to build lasting accessibility programs, policies, standards, and training courses. She has spent 20+ years speaking, teaching, and writing about accessibility, and building and testing accessible, inclusive, and usable websites for the Federal Government. Since retiring Ellen volunteers with Accessible Community working on the Ta11y Learning Content and mentoring accessibility novices to grow their skills.

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Linda

Internship Coordinator

Linda has a long history in computer program design, construction, and administration. She was previously the Director of Technical Services at the EMA group of retirement communities before retiring herself. She is and has always been a strong believer in equal opportunity and is happy to now be a volunteer with Accessible Community assisting interns.

Woman with brown hair, brown eyes and glasses.

Gladys

Mentoring Project Manager
Mutua11y

Gladys currently works on a global technology service management team. She has been studying to be a Project Management Professional (PMP) and working towards her certification.

Gladys’ goal is to help build a service that impacts a lot of people, particularly those with disabilities.

Smiling woman with long black hair and brown eyes.

Zsuzsanna

Workshops Project Manager
Mutua11y

Zsuzsanna is a skilled professional with over 13 years of experience delivering solutions through project management, business operations, partnership-building, organization, and effective communication. Her passion for innovation and improvement is fueled by her commitment to lifelong learning, which she believes is the key to unlocking human potential. With a Master’s degree in Business Economics, Faculty of Sciences and a background in theology and IT, Zsuzsanna brings a unique perspective to her work as an advocate for accessibility and empowerment. As an active member of various communities, she is dedicated to supporting people in reaching their full potential and is committed to furthering the Accessibility community’s mission.

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Michael

User Experience director

Michael has been working in human factors, usability, user experience (UX), and accessibility fields for over 10 years. Currently Michael provides Human Centered Engineering (HCE) guidance and accessibility program leadership to multiple US Government customers. He is constantly trying to educate organizations on the value of incorporating usability and accessibility into their development process, so that their end products will be usable for all users.

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Shay

Social Media Director

We care about privacy and security, particularly of people with disabilities. We use emoji rather than photographs to protect our staff from unintentional use of their images.