[absoft-members] Re: [absoft-members] [steve.noble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx: [Blindmath] FW: White House Highlights STEM Innovators in the Disability Community as �Champions of Change�]

"dogmom tds.net" <dogmom@xxxxxxx> · Sat, 5 May 2012 11:41:42 -0500

John, This is quite some honor. You are in some very distinguished company.
Marcia
On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 5:34 PM, John J. Boyer
<john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> The event can also be viewed later, I think on YouTube.
>
> ----- Forwarded message from "Noble,Stephen L." <
> steve.noble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> -----
>
> Subject: [Blindmath] FW: White House Highlights STEM Innovators in the
> Disability Community as ï¿½Champions of Changeï¿½
> From: "Noble,Stephen L." <steve.noble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Fri, 4 May 2012 19:38:21 +0000
> To: "nfb-science@xxxxxxxxxx" <nfb-science@xxxxxxxxxx>, "
> blindmath@xxxxxxxxxx"
>        <blindmath@xxxxxxxxxx>
> List-Archive: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindmath_nfbnet.org>
>
> Congratulations to all those being honored!
>
> ----
> THE WHITE HOUSE
>
> Office of Communications
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> May 7, 2012
>
>
>
> White House Highlights STEM Innovators in the Disability Community as
> â??Champions of Changeâ??
>
> WASHINGTON, DC â?? On Monday, May 7th, the White House will honor 14
> individuals as Champions of Change for leading the fields of science,
> technology, engineering, and math for people with disabilities in education
> and employment.
>
> â??STEM is vital to Americaâ??s future in education and employment, so equal
> access for people with disabilities is imperative, as they can contribute
> to and benefit from STEM,â?? said Kareem Dale, Special Assistant to the
> President for Disability Policy. â??The leaders weâ??ve selected as Champions
> of Change are proving that when the playing field is level, people with
> disabilities can excel in STEM, develop new products, create scientific
> inventions, open successful businesses, and contribute equally to the
> economic and educational future of our country.â??
>
>
>
> The Champions of Change program was created as a part of President Obamaâ??s
> Winning the Future initiative. Each week, a different sector is highlighted
> and groups of Champions, ranging from educators to entrepreneurs to
> community leaders, are recognized for the work they are doing to serve and
> strengthen their communities.
>
>
>
> To watch this event live, visit www.whitehouse.gov/live at 1:30 pm ET on
> May 7th.
>
>
>
> The White House â??Champions of Changeâ?? are:
>
>
>
> Ralph Braun is the founder and CEO of The Braun Corporation. Diagnosed
> with Spinal Muscular Atrophy in 1947, he began using a wheelchair for
> mobility. Determined to maintain his independence, he engineered the
> worldâ??s first motorized scooter and followed with the first accessible
> vehicle a few years later. The company grew substantially over the next
> decades, and today, The Braun Corporation is the worldwide leader of
> wheelchair accessible vehicles and wheelchair lifts in the mobility
> industry. What started as a part-time business operated from his parentsâ??
> garage has grown into an international corporation with over 800 employees.
> Ralph is now 71 years old and is the father of five adult children. He
> still lives and runs The Braun Corporation from his hometown of Winamac,
> Indiana with his wife, Melody.
>
>
>
> Joseph Sullivan is president of Duxbury Systems, Inc., a small company
> that has specialized in software for braille since its founding in 1975,
> and which now employs two blind people and which provides braille
> translation software for more than 130 languages worldwide.  He has also
> served on many braille-related committees, including the Literary Braille
> and Computer Braille Committees of the Braille Authority of North America,
> was chair of the technical design subcommittee of the Unified English
> Braille (UEB) project of the International Council on English Braille
> (ICEB), and currently serves on the UEB Maintenance Committee of ICEB.  Joe
> believes that braille is the key to literacy for blind persons, that
> literacy is the key to an informed citizenry, and that an informed
> citizenry is essential to civilization.
>
>
>
> University of North Texas (UNT) Biochemistry graduate student Nasrin Taei
> is developing a model peptide system to investigate the effects of
> mutations that cause sudden cardiac arrest in young adults. Her model
> system will be used for testing potential candidate drugs that ameliorate
> the structural effects of heart disease causing mutations. Nasrin is a
> member of Phi Theta Kappa an international honor society. As a STEM model,
> she tutored at the community college and mentored high school students,
> which led to her recognition at UNT as a Soaring Eagle. Nasrin is being
> honored as a Champion of Change for her humanitarianism and contributions
> toward discovering a treatment for heart disease and making a better future
> for people around the globe.
>
>
>
> Maria Dolores Cimini, Ph.D. is the Assistant Director for Prevention and
> Program Evaluation at the University at Albany Counseling Center and has
> served as the Principal Investigator for over six million dollars in
> behavioral health projects funded by the National Institutes of Health, the
> Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the U.S.
> Department of Education during the past decade. As a
> scientist-practitioner, Dr. Cimini has been active in promoting access to
> STEM for students with disabilities, particularly young women with
> disabilities, through her work with the American Psychological
> Associationâ??s Women with Disabilities in STEM Education Project for which
> she serves as Co-Chair and her mentoring of students and early career
> scientists on a national scale. Through her own experience as a scientist
> with a disability, she is helping our nation identify and enhance
> facilitators and address barriers to STEM education and career success for
> people wi
>  th disabilities. Dr. Cimini is being honored as a Champion of Change for
> her work in enhancing access to the STEM disciplines by students with
> disabilities through her research, leadership, and mentoring efforts.
>
>
>
> As a professional and a parent, Virginia Stern has been working for more
> than four decades to raise expectations of persons with disabilities, their
> families, educators, and employers, especially employers in science,
> technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Since 1977 she was a
> guiding force of the Project on Science, Technology and Disability of the
> American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She recognized
> that talented students with disabilities needed more than legislation and
> STEM degrees to gain employment in their chosen fields. In 1996 Mrs. Stern
> and her colleagues developed the flagship program, Entry Point!, to provide
> paid internships and develop career skills in the private and public
> sectors for students with disabilities in STEM. Hundreds of Entry Point!
> alumni have joined and continue to advance in the STEM workforce of the
> nation.
>
>
>
> Steve Jacobs is President of IDEAL Group. Steve is dedicated to enhancing
> the accessibility of STEM curriculum for students with disabilities.
> Steveâ??s company offers software that translates printed STEM materials into
> digital formats for conversion into speech and Braille.  Steveâ??s company
> also developed fully-accessible STEM-enabled eBook reading software. Over
> the past 3-1/2 years, Steveâ??s company has become one of the worldâ??s 
> largest
> developer of mobile accessibility applications with five million
> installations in 136 countries. Steve is also working with many
> institutions to tech-transfer their STEM-related work to mobile platforms.
> These institutions include Smith-Kettlewellâ??s Video Description R&D Center,
> University of Oregonâ??s Mathematics eText Research Center, and Georgia Tech
> wireless RERC and sonification lab. Steve is a 1973 graduate of Ohio State
> University. Steve and wife Pauline have been married for 37 years. Pauline
> and Steve have two daughters, S
>  hana and Jessica, and a granddaughter Brooke Christineâ?¦ who is Steveâ??s
> boss.
>
>
>
> Rafael San Miguel began his career at NASA working on the Space Shuttle
> program, and has spent the past 23 years as a scientist for The Coca-Cola
> Company.  He also serves as a board member of the Atlanta Speech School, an
> 80-year old private institution focused on meeting the needs of those with
> speech and language based disabilities.  Rafael, who has been profoundly
> deaf since infancy, creates awareness about disability by focusing on
> ability as he inspires young people to pursue education in science and
> math. Using his unique format that presents science in an exciting way, he
> has volunteered at schools both locally and in communities where he travels
> by connecting with underserved schools through the volunteer network of
> Points of Light. Rafael is now turning his energies toward a call to action
> and creating an initiative called the U.S. Science Project focused on
> inspiring individual scientists, businesses, legislators and community
> leaders to scale efforts for engaging i
>  n impact-driven volunteerism to begin to fill the science deficit in our
> nation through a volunteer Science Corps.
>
>
>
> David H. Rose, EdD, is a developmental neuropsychologist and educator
> whose primary focus is on the development of new technologies for learning.
> In 1984, Dr. Rose co-founded CAST, a not-for-profit research and
> development organization whose mission is to improve education, for all
> learners, through universal design for learning (UDL). Dr. Rose also
> teaches at Harvardâ??s Graduate School of Education where he has been on the
> faculty for more than 25 years. He is the author or editor of numerous
> books and articles on UDL, and the winner of awards from the Smithsonian
> Museum, the Tech Museum, and others.
>
>
>
> Christine Reich is Director of Research and Evaluation at the Museum of
> Science, Boston, one of the world's largest science centers. The Museum of
> Science brings science, technology, engineering, and math to about 1.5
> million visitors a year through its dynamic programs and interactive
> exhibits. As Director of Research and Evaluation, Christine oversees a
> department that conducts research and evaluation studies related to various
> aspects of the Museum experience, but her passion and expertise focus on
> researching ways to advance the inclusion of people with disabilities in
> museum learning. Prior to her current position, Christine worked as a
> museum educator and an exhibit planner, specializing in the development of
> museums exhibitions and programs that are inclusive of people with
> disabilities.
>
>
>
> George Kerscher began his IT innovations in 1987 and coined the term
> "print disabled."  George is dedicated to developing technologies that make
> information not only accessible, but also fully functional in the hands of
> persons who are blind or who have a print disability. He believes properly
> designed information systems can make all information accessible to all
> people and is working to push evolving technologies in this direction. As
> Secretary General of the DAISY Consortium and President of the
> International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), Kerscher is a recognized
> international leader in document access.  In addition, Kerscher is the
> Senior Officer of Accessible Technology at Learning Ally in the USA.  He
> chairs the DAISY/NISO Standards committee, and serves on the USA National
> Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) Board.
>
>
>
> As a child in the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind in
> 1949, John Boyer found that contemporary scientific material in braille was
> almost non-existent. John has never lost the sense of frustration he felt
> when the braille resources available to him were insufficient to satisfy
> his hunger for more science education. John believes that is the motive for
> his lifeâ??s work. He obtained a master's degree in Computer science, with a
> minor in electronics engineering at the University of Wisconsin in 1980.
> His first company was a Braille publishing enterprise which served an
> international client base. Abilitiessoft, Inc., his current company,
> creates open source adaptive software which makes Web pages available to
> blind persons through a Braille display. The current project,
> BrailleBlaster, will allow the integration of text with Braille graphics
> such as maps and graphs into a format accessible to blind people.
>
>
>
> Dr. Dimitri Kanevsky is a Research staff member in the Speech and Language
> Algorithms Department at the IBM T.J.Watson Research Center. Prior to
> joining IBM, he worked at a number of prestigious centers for higher
> mathematics, including the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the
> Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1979, he
> invented a multi-channel vibration based hearing aid, and founded a company
> to produce and market this device. He also developed the first uses for
> speech recognition as a communication aid for deaf users over the
> telephone, for which he received an award from the National Search for
> Computing Applications from John Hopkins to Assist Persons with
> Disabilities. In 1998 Dr. Kanevsky introduced the first remote
> transcription stenographic services over the Internet, and created the
> ViaScribe product speech recognition concept and system that allows
> automatic transcription of lectures in real-time and the creation of
> multimedia notes. At
>  IBM he has been responsible for developing the first Russian automatic
> speech recognition system, as well as key projects for embedding speech
> recognition in automobiles and broadcast transcription systems. He
> currently holds 152 US patents and was granted the title of Master Inventor
> IBM in 2002 , 2005 and 2010. His conversational biometrics based security
> patent was recognized by MIT, Technology Review Magazine, as one of five
> most influential patents for 2003. His work on Extended Baum-Welch
> algorithm in speech, another initiative for embedding speech recognition in
> automobiles and his work on conversational biometrics was recognized as
> science accomplishment  in 2002 , 2004 and 2008 by the Director of Research
> at IBM . In 2005 Dimitri Kanevsky received an Honorary degree (Doctor of
> Laws, honoris causa) from the University College of Cape Breton.  He was
> elected a member  of  the Word Technology Network in 2004 and was a
> Chairperson of IT Software Technology session at W
>  ord Technology Network Summit 2005 in San-Francisco, Calif. He also
> organized a special session on Large Scale Optimization at ICASSP 2012 in
> Japan.
>
>
>
> Henry Wedler is a graduate student at the University of California, Davis,
> working towards his Ph.D. in organic chemistry. Inspired by programs
> offered by the National Federation of the Blind in high school and with
> encouragement from professors, colleagues and others, Henry gained the
> confidence to challenge and refute the mistaken belief that STEM fields are
> too visual and, therefore, impractical for blind people.  Henry is not only
> following his own passion; he is working hard to develop the next
> generation of scientists by founding and teaching at an annual chemistry
> camp for blind and low-vision high school students. Chemistry Camp
> demonstrates to these students, by example and through practice, that their
> lack of eyesight should not hold them back from pursuing their dreams.
> Henry was nominated by Douglas Sprei of Learning Ally, a nonprofit that
> produces accessible audio textbooks for blind and learning disabled
> students, which is an indispensable resource that allowed
>  him to excel in school.
>
>
>
> Sina Bahram is a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at
> North Carolina State University.  His field of research is Human Computer
> Interaction (HCI).  Sina's primary interest is the dynamic translation of
> interfaces, with an emphasis on innovative environments being used by
> persons with visual impairment (PWVI) to facilitate learning, independence,
> and exploration.  His other research interests focus on using AI inspired
> techniques to solve real-world user-centric problems.  When he is not busy
> with his academic pursuits, Sina enjoys staying on the bleeding edge of
> technology and working with small, high-tech startup companies.  Sina's
> passion for his field originally stems from the fact that he is mostly
> blind and uses assistive technologies such as a screen reader to navigate
> computer systems and technological devices.  After experimenting in the
> fields of bioinformatics, privacy policy/law, and systems security, Sina
> discovered that his heart lies in helping u
>  sers of all capabilities use computer systems more effectively and
> efficiently.  He has worked in HCI full-time ever since.
>
>
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> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> --
> John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
> Abilitiessoft, Inc.
> http://www.abilitiessoft.com
> Madison, Wisconsin USA
> Developing software for people with disabilities
>
>
>

-- 
Marcia

[absoft-members] Re: [absoft-members] [steve.noble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx: [Blindmath] FW: White House Highlights STEM Innovators in the Disability Community as �Champions of Change�]

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