2024 Awardees

We are pleased to announce that five people have been selected as Digital Accessibility Advocate Awardees for 2024.

• Ali Bitterman
• Erin Brunelle
• Charles Pustelnik
• Dennis Reed, Jr.
• Andrew Schultz

Learn about the digital accessibility work each of the awardees has done to deserve this recognition.

Senior Research and Data Analyst
Student Life Assessment & Research

Ali is recognized for her work in Student Life Assessment and Research where she:

• Elevated awareness of accessibility of data visualizations.
• Established standards to ensure that data visualizations are as accessible as possible.
• Initiated an audit of how screen readers interpret current survey data.

Director, CAT Client Services
Center for Assistive Technology (CAT)

Erin is recognized for her work in CAT where she:

• Provides excellent evaluation and training to hundreds of people with disabilities using assistive technology to achieve their educational and vocational goals.
• Collaborates with Accessibility Resources to provide education on the often-invisible digital accessibility barriers experienced by students.
• Initiated a collaboration with the Rehabilitation Counseling department to understand barriers to assistive technology and mental health access by person with disabilities in underserved populations.

Web Producer
School of Management

Chuck is recognized for his work in the School of Management where he:

• Maintains high standards for digital accessibility to ensure an inclusive digital environment.
• Provides consistent support to web authors to raise awareness of accessibility best practices.
• Ensures equal access to all forms of digital content by ensuring all videos are captioned and leading efforts to ensure podcasts are correctly transcribed.
  

Principal Technology Architect
UB Information Technology

Dennis is recognized for his work in UBIT where he:

• Ensures that the UBIT website is accessible by reviewing page structure, color contrast, text equivalents for multimedia, etc.
• Works with third-party vendors to ensure accessibility of public-facing web components.
• Creates accessible web interfaces and reusable WCAG-compliant code snippets for UBCMS authors.
  

Associate Professor of Research
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Andrew is recognized for his work in School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) where he:

• Brought the school's applications and most heavily visited websites into conformance with accessibility standards.
• Collaborated with various departments across campus to transform inaccessible paper-based processes into robust and accessible web workflows.
• Includes accessibility in the design phase of each project and considers how different populations will interact with the apps.