Allen School professor emeritus Richard Ladner holds the SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education next to Paul Tymann, faculty at the Rochester Institute of Technology, who received the SIGCSE Award for Distinguished Service to the Computer Science Education Community.
Although Allen School professor emeritus Richard Ladner started his career as one of the founders of the University of Washington’s theoretical computer science group, he has grown to become a leading researcher in accessible technology and an advocate for expanding access to computer science for students with disabilities. As a child of deaf educators, Ladner is deeply committed to accessibility and disability inclusion, and credits his first-hand experience with making him a more effective researcher.
“Computing technology has changed the world and almost everyone now has a computer in their pocket,” said Ladner. “It is important that future engineers and technologists learn about accessibility so that they can design technology that is accessible so that everyone can use it, and so that they can build things that are particularly useful to people with disabilities such as screen readers.”
