W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Welcomes Wendy Chisholm

W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Welcomes Wendy Chisholm

Contact:
Janet Daly, W3C
1 617 253 5884
janet@w3.org

http://www.w3.org/ -- 18 October 1999 -- The World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) is pleased to announce the addition of Wendy Chisholm to the staff of
W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Ms. Chisholm comes to the W3C
from the Trace Research and Development Center at the University of
Wisconsin, Madison. Her focus at W3C will be coordinating development of
tools to facilitate Web accessibility, coordination with research projects
on developing accessible Web technologies, and development of guidelines
for Web accessibility.

Ms. Chisholm's previous position as a human factors engineer at the Trace
R&D Center included work on Web accessibility, and research on Java
accessibility and evolving Web technologies. She represented the Trace R&D
Center to the Web Accessibility Initiative by serving as the lead editor on
W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, which provided the first
definitive instruction on how to make Web content accessible to all users.

The Trace R&D Center, directed by Dr. Gregg Vanderheiden, is widely
regarded as the leading research, development, and resource center in the
area of access to computers by people with disabilities. Over the last
several years, the Trace Center has also become internationally recognized
for its work in disability access and universal design of the World Wide
Web, information transaction machines, and telecommunications. The Trace
Center has been a primary collaborator in the partnership effort at the Web
Accessibility Initiative.

"We are very pleased to have Wendy join the WAI Team," said Judy Brewer,
Director of the WAI International Program Office. "Her contributions were
pivotal in developing the Web Content Accesibility Guidelines, given the
extensive resources and expertise developed at Trace. WAI will benefit from
her direct presence on our team, and at the same time we look forward to
even closer ties between WAI and the Trace Center."

"Its always hard to see key staff move up and out" said Gregg Vanderheiden,
Director of the Trace Center, "but we are lucky in this case in that it
advances one of our key allies, the Web Accessibility Initiative. It will
provide Trace with even closer links to the WAI/W3C's work on mobile and
future technologies, which are so important to Trace's next generation IT
research program. We look forward to working with Wendy and the WAI on the
interesting challenges these areas will provide."

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About the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative addresses accessibility of the Web
through five complementary activities that address technology, guidelines,
tools, education and outreach, and research and development. Additional
information on WAI is available at <http://www.w3.org/WAI>, and the Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines mentioned above are available at
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT>.

WAI's International Program Office enables partnering of industry,
disability organizations, accessibility research organizations, and
governments interested in creating an accessible Web. WAI sponsors include
the US National Science Foundation and Department of Education's National
Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research; the European
Commission's DG XIII Telematics for Disabled 
and Elderly Programme; Government of Canada, Industry Canada; IBM, Lotus
Development Corporation, and Bell Atlantic.

About the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing
common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its
interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run by
the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) in the USA, the National
Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) in France
and Keio University in Japan. Services provided by 
the Consortium include: a repository of information about the World Wide
Web for developers and users; reference code implementations to embody and
promote standards; and various prototype and sample applications to
demonstrate use of new technology. To date, more than 350 organizations are
Members of the Consortium. For more information about the World Wide Web
Consortium, see <http://www.w3.org/>.

About the Trace Research and Development Center

The Trace Research and Development Center is an interdisciplinary research
center of the College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin - Madison.
The Center, founded in 1971, is the designated national Rehabilitation
Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Access to Information Technologies
funded by the U.S. National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation
Research.  Trace is also a partner with Gallaudet University on an RERC on
Access to Telecommunications, and leads the Universal Design/Disability
Access Program of the National Computational Science Alliance funded by the
U.S. National Science Foundation. Additional information on Trace is
available at <http://trace.wisc.edu/>.

_________________________________________________________________________
Judy Brewer    jbrewer@w3.org    +1.617.258.9741    http://www.w3.org/WAI
Director,Web Accessibility Initiative(WAI), World Wide Web Consortium(W3C)

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Received on Monday, 18 October 1999 22:04:03 UTC