2010 Conference Speakers

Cathy Bodine is internationally recognized for her leadership in the field of assistive technology and vigorously pursues her passions for new product design, research, service to families and persons with disabilities, and the professional assistive technology community at large through her leadership of Assistive Technology Partners. She has served as the principal investigator (PI) for a number of pre-service professional preparation grants, as well as for the Colorado Assistive Technology Act. In addition, she has served as the PI for several research and development projects leading to new designs in AT devices. Bodine is the principal investigator for the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for Advancing Cognitive Technologies (RERC-ACT). She is also leading a U.S. Department of Education–funded Field Initiated Development Project utilizing the International Classification of Functioning to measure assistive technology outcomes. Bodine served as the secretary for the board of directors of the Rehabilitation Engineering Society of North America (RESNA); she is a member of the NCTI Advisory Board.

Bonnie Brown has been a career educator with special needs youngsters for over 30 years. As the former superintendent of District 75 in the New York City Department of Education, she was responsible for 23,000 severely challenged students with cognitive, physical, social, and emotion issues. Brown is committed to bringing emotional intelligence principles into schools to facilitate an improved climate and culture that foster student achievement and staff motivation and that transform schools into a safe harbor for all constituents. Under her leadership, numerous initiatives were implemented that focused on character education, social-emotional learning, and positive behavior supports for students manifesting challenging behaviors that interfere with learning. Brown is a contributing editor to Education Update, sits on the education panel of the New York University Child Study Center, and guest lectures on special education in various colleges and universities throughout the tri-state area.

C. Sidney Burrus is the Maxfield-Oshman Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Senior Strategist of the Connexions Project, and research professor at Rice University in Houston, Texas. The Connexions Project started in 1999 at Rice University to apply modern technology and theory to education. It has grown to be one of the most used Open Educational Resources (OER) in the world. Burrus has been closely involved with it since its founding and has lectured and published widely on Connexions. Over the last 40 years, he has been dean of engineering, chair of the Electrical Engineering Department, and director of a research institute at Rice. He has authored five books and more than 250 articles on digital signal processing, received teaching awards from Rice, and received research awards from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and others. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, NASA, and industrial grants. Burrus is a Fellow of the IEEE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he has received the IEEE Kilby Medal and the Association of Rice Alumni Gold Medal.

Karen Cator is the director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education. She has devoted her career to creating the best possible learning environments for students. Prior to joining the Department, Cator directed Apple’s leadership and advocacy efforts in education. In this role, she focused on the intersection of education policy and research, emerging technologies, and the reality faced by teachers, students, and administrators. Cator joined Apple in 1997 from the public education sector, most recently leading technology planning and implementation in Juneau, Alaska. She also served as special assistant for Telecommunications for the lieutenant governor of Alaska. She is the past chair of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and has served on several boards, including the Software & Information Industry Association—Education.

Milton Chen is senior fellow and executive director emeritus at the George Lucas Educational Foundation. During his 12 years as executive director, the foundation’s Edutopia.org Web site became known as a destination for films, articles, and other resources on innovation in schools. His career has spanned four decades at the intersection of media, technology, and learning. He was a founding director of the KQED Center for Education (PBS) and director of research at Sesame Workshop. Chen has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and has been a Fulbright New Century Scholar at the University of Edinburgh. He chairs the advisory council for the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at St. Vincent College and is a member of the National Park System advisory board. He serves on the board of directors of ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career and the San Francisco School Alliance. His recent book is Education Nation: Six Leading Edges of Innovation in Our Schools, released in 2010 from ASCD. His work has been honored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Fred Rogers Award, Sesame Workshop’s Elmo Award, the Association of Educational Service Agencies, the Congressional Black Caucus, and two science centers, The Exploratorium and the Lawrence Hall of Science.

Sean deWitt is passionate about unlocking human potential through innovation in entrepreneurship, technology and microfinance. At Grameen Foundation, deWitt first worked with the Village Phone companies in Uganda and Rwanda, then moved to Indonesia to lead our efforts to reinvent the model in a vastly different market. He currently oversees the local public-private partnerships, manages the Application Laboratory R&D effort to build mobile services to improve the livelihoods of the undeserved, and is responsible for the growth of our implementing partner, a social enterprise serving the poor with microfranchise business opportunities. deWitt joined Grameen Foundation with 10 years experience in the public, nonprofit and private sector. He led the development of an open-source solution for small businesses for a New York City based foundation, optimized supply chains and logistics with Intel Corporation and Walt Disney Company, helped design and implement the first two releases of the SAP mobile sales force solution with Fortune 500 clients in Europe and the Americas as a management consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and led technology projects with local partners in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean with the US Department of State to help build electronic trade opportunities.

Jim Fruchterman is a former rocket scientist who founded two of the foremost optical character recognition companies, Calera and Arkenstone, and developed successful social enterprises. In 1989, Fruchterman founded Arkenstone, a nonprofit social enterprise, to produce reading machines based on the Calera technology for the disabled community. Following the sale of the Arkenstone product line in 2000, he used the resulting capital to fund Benetech, with an explicit goal of using the power of technology to serve humanity. Benetech received the Skoll Award for social entrepreneurship under Fruchterman’s leadership. Fruchterman has also been active in public service, with two stints on U.S. federal advisory committees. In 2006, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. He was named an Outstanding Social Entrepreneur in 2003 by the Schwab Foundation and continues to participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Fruchterman also received the Robert F. Bray Award from the American Council of the Blind in recognition of his outstanding efforts to make literary works accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired.

Kumar Garg is a policy analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) who leads OSTP’s education efforts and works on the President Obama’s “Educate to Innovate” campaign. At OSTP, his portfolio focuses on the intersections between the president’s education agenda and the areas of science and technology and includes federal STEM policy, the education technology agenda, and the role of open government and innovation in advancing learning. Garg works closely with a number of federal agencies that have educational agendas, including the U.S. Department of Education. Prior to his time in government, he worked as a supervising fellow and clinical lecturer in law at Yale Law School, focusing on education issues and representing parents seeking educational reform. As part of his work, Garg worked closely with highly challenged local school districts and educators on resource issues, system reform, and broader state fiscal policy.

Larry Goldberg is the director of Media Access at WGBH where he oversees the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), the Caption Center, and the Descriptive Video Service (together known as the WGBH Media Access Group). He has been deeply involved in national and international efforts to ensure that the design and implementation of media and information systems address the needs of people with disabilities. Goldberg has long been a pioneer and a recognized world expert in the technology, policy, and business aspects of making media and technology accessible to all. He initiated the development of the recently implemented captioning system for digital television in the United States and served as the founding chair of the Working Group of the Electronic Industries Association responsible for designing a captioning system for the country’s Advanced Television system. Goldberg has served on the Federal Communications Commission’s Technological Advisory Council and is a board member of the Alliance for Public Technology and of the Institute for Human-Centered Design (formerly Adaptive Environments) of Boston.

Tracy Gray is a managing director at the American Institutes for Research where she directs two national technology centers funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)—the National Center for Technology Innovation (www.NationalTechCenter.org) and the Center for Technology Implementation. These Centers promote the development and implementation of evidence-based technology practices and tools to improve the educational achievement of students with disabilities. She also serves as the director for the Microsoft Math Partnership (www.mathpartnership.org) providing technical assistance to teachers, administrators, and coaches of mathematics to implement high quality technology-enriched programs for middle school students. Gray is a recognized expert in education and technology who has led numerous initiatives in the nation and abroad that examine the impact of technology on educational achievement. Prior to joining AIR, she led the philanthropic initiatives to integrate technology in after school programs as the VP for Youth Services at the Morino Institute. She served as the first deputy executive director and chief operating officer for the Corporation for National Service that launched AmeriCorps. Earlier, Gray served as the deputy director for the first American Red Cross AIDS Public Education program. She is co-editor with Heidi Silver-Pacuilla of the upcoming book, Breakthrough Teaching and Learning: How Assistive and Educational Technologies are Driving Innovations to be published by Springer Publications in November 2010.

Jennifer Higgins manages two multi-state Enhanced Assessment Grant projects at Nimble Innovation Lab, a division of Measured Progress. Higgins has 10 years of experience working with both state assessment programs and schools to conduct educational research. Her work has focused specifically on educational uses of technology and the validity of computer-based test accommodations. She led three computer-based test accommodation studies conducted for the New England Compact in 2002. These studies launched the development of NimbleTools, a nationally recognized Universally Designed computer based testing system. Jen has co-authored one book, 12 technical reports, and ten peer-reviewed articles. She also is the assistant editor for the Journal of Technology, Learning and Assessment.

Heather Horst received her Ph.D. in anthropology from University College London before joining the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Youth project. Her dissertation, Back a Yaad: Constructions of Home Among Jamaica’s Return Migrant Community, examined the role of material culture in the process of return migration and community development. After completing her dissertation, she returned to Jamaica to examine development, new information and communication technologies, and the digital divide as part of a large-scale Department for International Development–funded project titled “Information Society: Emergent Technologies and Development in the South,” which compared the relationship between Information and Communications Technologies and development in Ghana, India, Jamaica, and South Africa. Her book with Daniel Miller, The Cell Phone: An Anthropology of Communication (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2006), explores the specific implications of the cell phone and the cell phone industry in rural and urban Jamaica. Horst’s research on the Digital Youth project extended her interests in the materiality of information and communication technologies as well as relationships of power and access.

Paul Jesukiewicz is the director of the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In this position, Jesukiewicz is responsible for directing and implementing the ADL Initiative within the Department of Defense as well as other government organizations, academia, and industry around the world. He provides direction for the development and refinement of the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM®), the ADL Registry, and the continued expansion of the ADL Initiative through research and development of new and emerging learning technologies.

Cecilia Kang is the national technology reporter for The Washington Post. She writes for the newspaper and her blog, Post Tech, which focuses on technology policy. Kang came to The Post five years ago after covering technology and demographics for The San Jose Mercury News. There, she covered the dot com boom and bust of Silicon Valley. She was the bureau chief of AP-Dow Jones’ Seoul, South Korea office, where she oversaw a bureau of four reporters covering the Asian financial crisis and the election of the nation’s first civilian president. She has covered financial markets for Dow Jones in New York. Kang is a graduate of Whitman College, has two young children and lives in Bethesda.

Matt Kaplowitz is founding partner and director of technology and content innovation of Bridge Multimedia. He has led the research and development team implementing universally accessible technology and supporting content for digital media and television for the past decade. Kaplowitz has produced educational and entertainment media for more than 25 years. In 1992-1993, in association with Scholastic Education and Apple, he was part of the technology group that formulated the audio standards for compressed media remaining in use today. In 1998-1999, in association with Broadway Television Network, Kaplowitz served as a member of U.S. State Department’s delegation representing the U.S. in establishing technical global standards for high definition television. Kaplowitz served, 2006-2007, on the U.S. Access Board’s 508 Standards and the Telecommunications Act Guidelines Subcommittee for Software, Web, and Content. Most recently, Kaplowitz and Bridge received a 5-year technology access grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

John Kemp has more than 45 years of direct experience in the disability movement and currently serves as a principal at the Washington, DC, law firm of Powers, Pyles, Sutter & Verville, P.C. In his practice, he serves as the CEO of American Congress of Community Supports and Employment Services (ACCSES) and The One Percent Coalition, as well as the executive director of and general counsel to the US Business Leadership Network. He has also led, partnered, worked for, and served on the boards of directors of many of the leading disability and nonprofit organizations, including the United Cerebral Palsy Associations and the U.S. International Council on Disabilities. In addition, John serves on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Persons with Disabilities. He is widely respected for his many achievements, in both the corporate and the nonprofit worlds. As a person with personal disability experience who uses four prostheses, he inspires others to achieve the impossible through knowledge, experience, vision, personality, and persistence.

Paul Kim is the first chief technology officer for Stanford University School of Education. In his role, he provides leadership in all aspects of academic and innovative technology. He develops and disseminates innovative academic technology solutions and services (e.g., web-integrated assessment and survey solutions, video-based conferencing and collaboration systems, learning content management systems, and student performance tracking systems). He also directs technology licensing and patent processing while serving as school’s primary custodian for a series of national educational research databases. Kim has been collaborating with educational research and development institutes such as U.S. Satellite Laboratories, New York for 3D science curriculum development, Medical Research & Information Center, Korea for clinical case system design. He has served as VP & CIO for Vatterott College, MO and Chairman of the Board for Intercultural Institute of California. He is currently interested in exploring ways to promote electronic community-based learning and tracking individual performance.

Gary E. Knell is President and Chief Executive Officer of Sesame Workshop. Mr. Knell leads the nonprofit educational organization in its mission to create innovative, engaging content that maximizes the educational power of all media to help children reach their highest potential. He has been instrumental in focusing the organization on Sesame Street’s global mission, including groundbreaking co-productions in South Africa, India, Northern Ireland, and Egypt. He also helped found PBS Kids Sprout, a 24-hour domestic cable channel in the U.S.

Previously, Mr. Knell was Managing Director of Manager Media International, a print and multimedia publishing company based in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore. In this capacity, he oversaw the development of the monthly business magazine Asia Inc., the daily Asian-based newspaper Asia Times, and several trade publications.

He also has served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel at WNET/Channel 13 in New York, was Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary and Governmental Affairs Committees, and worked in the California State Legislature and Governor’s Office.

Mr. Knell is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, serves as a Director of executive search firm Heidrick and Struggles, is on the Board of Governors of the National Geographic Education Foundation and is a Board Member of AARP Services, Inc, the Jacob Burns Film Center and Save the Children. He is also an advisor to WFUV, public radio at Fordham University, the Annenberg School of Communications at USC, and Common Sense Media. He is a frequent spokesperson in the media, appearing in numerous venues, including CNN, Fox News, NBC’s Today Show, NPR, and CNBC.

Mr. Knell has been a Gordon Grand Fellow at Yale University, and a guest lecturer at Harvard University, Duke University, and Carnegie Mellon University. He has served as the commencement speaker at UCLA and the University of Texas at Austin.

Mr. Knell holds a BA in Political Science and Journalism from the University of California at Los Angeles and a JD from Loyola University School of Law.

Corinna Lathan is founder and CEO of AnthroTronix, Inc. (ATinc), a biomedical engineering research and development company focused on the development of enabling technologies including robotics. She is also the founder of AT KidSystems, a spinoff of ATinc, which distributes alternative computer interfaces and educational software. Her work with children with disabilities has been featured in Forbes, Time, and the New Yorker magazines, as well as led to such distinctions as Maryland’s “Top Innovator of the Year,” one of MIT Technology Review Magazine’s “Top 100 World Innovators.” She has also been named a Technology Pioneer and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Lathan is actively involved in educational outreach programs that empower women and minorities in science and technology. She is the founder of Keys to Empowering Youth, an engineering mentoring program for young girls and she is also an adviser to the FIRST and VEX robotics programs.

Dane Linn is the director of the education division at the National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices and oversees all education-related policy research, analysis, and resource development. Recognized as a national expert in his field, he has authored numerous policy reports on issues ranging from school finance to teacher quality and school redesign to pay for performance. Recently, under the leadership of former Governor Mark Warner of Virginia, Linn spearheaded the division’s national initiative on Redesigning the American High School. Prior to his work at NGA, Linn worked at the West Virginia Department of Education where he was responsible for ensuring the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Before that, he served as legislative liaison to the House of Delegates. Linn’s professional experience in education began as an elementary school principal and teacher.

Gretchen Livingston is a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center. She has been an author on a series of reports examining trends and patterns of internet use among Latinos, including Latinos Online, Latinos Online 2006-2008: Narrowing the Gap, and The Latino Digital Divide: The Native Born versus the Foreign Born. In addition, Livingston recently co-authored a report examining the means through which Latino youth socialize and communicate. Prior to joining the Pew Research Center, Livingston was a visiting research fellow at the Princeton University Office of Population Research. She earned her Ph.D. in Demography and Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Christopher Lohse is the strategic initiative director of information systems and research at the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). He is responsible for creating and implementing an innovative vision for the role and use of data in the education space. Before joining CCSSO, Lohse was the internal research director for Teach For America, an adviser to the Montana state school chief (Director of Policy Research and Federal Liaison), a research director for the Native Caucus of the National Conference of State Legislatures, and a research analyst focusing on science and education policy for the Montana Legislature’s Office of Research and Policy Analysis. He is also a mentor teacher in the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Teacher Education Program, working with master’s candidates in science and mathematics program.

Melody Musgrove grew up in Mississippi, the child of public school teachers. She worked as a classroom teacher, school administrator, district special education director and assistant superintendent before serving as state director of special education for Mississippi Department of Education until January, 2007. From 2007 until 2010, she was director of business development for LRP Publications, the nation’s leading publisher of legal and regulatory guidance for educators. Musgrove’s career is distinguished by her commitment to collaborative frameworks that find creative solutions to difficult educational problems. She is focused on improving outcomes for all children, and experienced in using data to influence systemic improvement decisions. During her tenure as state director of special education, students with disabilities achieved improved results in reading and math, schools implemented more inclusive practices, graduation rates increased, and drastic steps were taken to halt disproportionate identification of African-American students for special education. Musgrove was selected by the White House to be director of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) for the U.S. Department of Education, and assumed the role in August of 2010. Melody and her husband, Ronnie, have four children ranging in age from 22 to 27, all of whom graduated from Mississippi’s public schools, and a rescued shelter dog named Noah. They divide their time between homes in Madison, Mississippi and Washington, DC.

Jim Pellegrino is Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He also serves as co-director of UIC’s interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Learning, Instruction, and Teacher Development. Prior to UIC, he was the Frank W. Mayborn Professor of Cognitive Studies at Vanderbilt University where he also served as co-director of the Learning Technology Center from 1989 to 1991 and as dean of Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development from 1992 to 1998. Pellegrino’s research and development interests focus on children’s and adults’ thinking and learning and the implications of cognitive research and theory for assessment and instructional practice. Much of his current work is focused on analyses of complex learning and instructional environments, including those incorporating powerful information technology tools, with the goal of better understanding the nature of student learning and the conditions that enhance deep understanding. A special concern of his research is the incorporation of effective formative assessment practices, assisted by technology, to maximize student learning and understanding.

Annuska Perkins is an accessibility program manager, product planner, and user experience strategist in the Accessibility Technology Group at Microsoft Corporation. Annuska has extensive experience in product planning and customer research for Windows Accessibility features, deep knowledge of Accessibility User Needs, and expertise in Accessible Technology. She drove re-design of accessibility control panel in Windows operating system; based on market data, she defined necessary changes in the end-user presentation of the Windows accessibility features and created prototypes to illustrate the new design. Also, Annuska is a former Microsoft Corporation representative to W3C Web Accessibility Initiative’s working group that defines how to design accessible web content. She is a renowned industry resource for insights into accessibility and usability.

Linda Roberts directed the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology from its inception in September 1993 to January 2001 and served as the Secretary of Education’s senior adviser on technology. While project director and senior associate at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Roberts led three landmark technology studies: Power On! New Tools for Teaching and Learning; Linking for Learning: A New Course for Education; and Adult Literacy and Technology: Tools for a Lifetime. She advises leading technology companies, foundations, and government agencies. Roberts is a trustee of the Sesame Workshop and the Education Development Center and is a board director of Wireless Generation.

David Rose, chief education officer at the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), helped found the organization with a vision of expanding opportunities for all students, especially those with disabilities, through the innovative development and application of technology. Rose specializes in developmental neuropsychology and in the universal design of learning technologies. In addition to his role as founding director/chief scientist of cognition and learning at CAST, Rose lectures at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, where he has been on the faculty for 20 years. He has been the lead researcher on a number of U.S. Department of Education grants and now is the principal investigator for two national centers to develop and implement the National Instructional Materials Standard (NIMAS). He is the co-author of Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning (ASCD, 2002), as well as numerous other books and articles, and is frequently a keynote speaker at regional and national educational conferences.

Daniel Schwartz is a professor of education and co-director of the Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center at Stanford University. He studies student understanding and representation and the ways that technology can facilitate learning. He works at the intersection of cognitive science, computer science, and education, examining cognition and instruction in individual, cross-cultural, and technological settings. A theme throughout Schwartz’s research is how people’s facility for spatial thinking can inform and influence processes of learning, instruction, assessment, and problem solving. He finds that new media make it possible to exploit spatial representations and activities in fundamentally new ways, offering an exciting complement to the verbal approaches that dominate educational research and practice. Schwartz worked for 8 years as a secondary school teacher in Kenya, the inner-city of Los Angeles, and a Native Alaskan village before returning to school to earn his Ph.D. in human cognition and learning. His research examines how people move from untutored mental models to more formal and verbal understanding in the domains of mathematics, physics, and biology. His work employs laboratory and computer-modeling methodologies, as well as classroom interventions that involve the use of instructional software programs that he has authored, including STAR. Legacy, the Hypothesis Visualizer, and Teachable Agents.

Kate Seelman is co-scientific director of the National Science Foundation–supported Quality of Life Technology Engineering Research Center. She is one of two Americans serving on the World Health Organization’s nine-member international editorial committee to guide the development of the first world report on disability. She served as director of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) in the Clinton Administration. She is widely published, with a focus on health and technology policy for people with disabilities and older adults. Her most recent articles have appeared in publications such as Engineering, Medicine and Biology (2008), Encyclopedia of Special Education (2007), Encyclopedia of Bioengineering (2006), and Disabilities Studies Quarterly (2005). She is the author of the Foreword and a chapter on technology for the Handbook of Smart Technology for Aging, Disability and Independence: Computing and Engineering Design and Application and co-editor of the Handbook of Disability Studies. During her career, she has received numerous awards including the Gold Key Award from the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, appointment as an honorary fellow in the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA), a National Science Foundation Assistantship, and a distinguished Mary Switzer Fellowship.

Thornton Staples is currently the director of community strategy at Fedora Commons, Inc. He was the co-director for the Fedora Project from its inception in 2001. He has done information architecture consulting for variety of academic and cultural history projects in Europe, Australia, and the United States. Previous positions include director of Digital Library Research and Development at the University of Virginia Library; chief, Office of Information Technology at the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; project director at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia; and special projects coordinator, academic computing at the University of Virginia.

Karen Peltz Strauss serves as deputy bureau chief in the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission, where she oversees the Commission’s disability policies. She has over 25 years experience working on issues concerning telecommunications access for people with disabilities, having spearheaded significant federal legislation and regulatory policy on these issues. Before coming to the Commission, she co-founded the Coalition of Organizations for Accessible Technology, or COAT, a coalition of over 300 national and regional organizations dedicated to ensuring disability access to emerging Internet-based and digital communications technologies in the 21st century. Her previous work includes serving as legal counsel for Gallaudet University’s National Center for Law and Deafness and the National Association of the Deaf, where she drafted federal laws requiring televised closed captioning, telecommunications relay services, and disability access to telecommunications products and services. In 2006, Strauss published A New Civil Right: Telecommunications Equality for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Americans, a comprehensive book on the history and scope of the telecommunications access movement by the deaf and hard of hearing community in America.

Martha Thurlow addresses the implications of contemporary U.S. policy and practice for students with disabilities and English language learners, including national and statewide assessment policies and practices, standards-setting efforts, and graduation requirements. Thurlow has conducted research for the past 35 years in a variety of areas, including assessment and decision making, learning disabilities, early childhood education, dropout prevention, effective classroom instruction, and integration of students with disabilities in general education settings. She has published extensively on all these topics, authoring numerous books and book chapters and more than 200 articles and reports. In 2003, she completed her 8-year term as co-editor of Exceptional Children, the research journal of the Council for Exceptional Children, and is currently associate editor for numerous journals.

Gregg Vanderheiden is director of the TRACE R&D Center at the University of Wisconsin. His interests cover a wide range of research areas in technology, human disability, and aging. His current research includes the development of new interface technologies, models for information transfer across sensory modalities, network-based services, techniques for augmenting human performance, enhancement of the usability of the environment, and matching of enhanced abilities to environmental demands. Vanderheiden also studies and develops standards for access to Web-based technologies, operating systems, and telecommunication systems.

Joanne Weiss is chief of staff to the U. S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. She joined the Department in 2009 to serve as senior adviser to the secretary and director of the Race to the Top Fund. In this capacity, she led the department’s $4.35B Race to the Top program, designed to encourage and reward states making system-wide, comprehensive, and coherent education reforms. Prior to joining the Administration, Weiss was partner and chief operating officer at NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy firm working to transform public education by supporting education entrepreneurs and connecting their work to systemic change. Prior to her work at NewSchools, Weiss was chief executive officer of Claria Corporation, an e-services recruiting firm that helped emerging-growth companies build their teams quickly and well. She previously spent twenty years in the design, development, and marketing of technology-based products and services for education. She was co-founder, chief executive officer, and before that, VP of Products and Technologies at Academic Systems, a company that helped under-prepared college students succeed in mathematics and writing. Weiss also served as executive VP of Business Operations at Wasatch Education Systems, a K-12 educational technology company, where she led product development, customer service, and operations. She began her career as VP of Education R&D at Wicat Systems, where she was responsible for the development of nearly 100 multimedia curriculum and assessment products for K-12 schools.

Larry Wexler has been a special educator for 40 years, fulfilling multiple roles: teacher of students with significant disabilities, program director, principal, state specialist for intellectual disabilities, chief of staff for the State Director of Special Education, director of state monitoring, Office of Special Education Program’s (OSEP) state contact, OSEP project officer, deputy director of the monitoring and state improvement planning division and associate division director responsible for OSEP’s National Initiatives Team. Wexler is currently the director of OSEP’s Research to Practice Division where he manages a $295 million discretionary grants program. In addition, he represents the Department of Education on the Council of UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the School of International Service at American University, a Masters’ degree in teaching with a concentration in intellectual disabilities from Howard University, and a doctorate with a concentration in severe disabilities from the Johns Hopkins University.

Michael K. Yudin recently joined the U.S. Department of Education as deputy assistant secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education and serves as a key advisor to the assistant secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education on the formulation and development of policy related to Student Achievement and School Accountability, Academic Improvement and Teacher Quality, math and science, high school reform, early childhood initiatives, and Indian education. Yudin represents the assistant secretary on these issues and acts as the official liaison between the Office of the Secretary and other Department of Education Offices. He represents the assistant secretary in meetings with Congressional and White House representatives, other Federal agencies, and numerous public and private organizations concerned with or interested in elementary and secondary education.

Prior to joining the Department, Yudin worked in the U.S. Senate on policy related to education, children and families, disabilities, competitiveness, and poverty. He served as legislative director for Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, senior counsel to Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, and HELP Committee Counsel to Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont. In these roles, he assisted in developing, promoting, and advancing a comprehensive legislative agenda. He helped draft and negotiate various pieces of legislation, including the No Child Left Behind Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the America Competes Act, the Higher Education Act, Head Start, Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, WIA, TANF, and Child Welfare.

Yudin also served as an attorney at the Social Security Administration and at the U.S. Department of Labor for nearly 10 years. He provided legal advice on various policy initiatives, including social security, disability, employment, and welfare reform.

Yong Zhao is University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also serves as founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology and executive director of the Confucius Institute and the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. He is a fellow of the International Academy for Education. His research interests include computer gaming and education, diffusion of innovations, teacher adoption of technology, computer-assisted language learning, and globalization and education. Yong has extensive international experience. He has consulted with government and educational agencies and spoken on educational issues in many countries on six continents. He is the author of Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization released in 2009 from ASCD. His current work focuses on designing 21st century schools in the context of globalization and the digital revolution.