- From: Janet Daly <janet@w3.org>
- Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 21:42:11 -0400
- To: w3c-news@w3.org
- CC: jbrewer@w3.org
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Welcomes Wendy Chisholm Contact: Janet Daly, W3C 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." --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/>.
Received on Monday, 18 October 1999 21:47:13 UTC