I am deeply committed to fostering inclusive ecosystems in education and work, with a focus on disability inclusion. I promote organizational awareness at the executive level of the need for holistic accessibility governance.

In my current role as Accessibility Lead at D2L Corporation, I set and drive D2L’s vision for accessibility; serve as a strategic accessibility advisor across multiple organizational functions; and drive D2L’s thought leadership in the education, edtech, and standards-making space.

As an Adjunct Professor with OCAD University, Toronto, I supervise student research projects in the Master of Design program in Inclusive Design (MDID) and mentor them in their research project management. I taught inclusive interaction design, research colloquium and experiential lab courses in the above program from 2012 to 2016 and received the OCAD University Award for Excellence in Teaching for 2016 in the Non-tenured category. As a multi-disciplinary teacher with accredited competencies across information technology, information systems, human-computer interaction, inclusive design, disability studies and pure sciences, making synergistic connections across fields while teaching is my forte.

I also hold Adjunct Professor position with York University’s Critical Disabilities Department. I am a member of the doctoral committee of Anne Jackson, my former student from the MDes program at OCADU.

For over a decade I have worked with Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) on large-scale, government-funded ICT projects in Toronto, some of them pan-Canadian, involving inclusive design of information systems and information technology for people with disabilities. My experience in project management has honed my skills in fund-raising, planning, organization, time management, people management, communication, negotiation and collaboration. Through my consulting firm Sahaay Inclusive Technologies, I offer strategic planning, training, consulting and audit services to organizations looking to enhance the accessibility and user experience of their websites, applications and businesses.

Memberships:

• Chair, MC/ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 36 – Information Technology for Training, Education and Learning Mirror Committee of Standards Council of Canada.’
• Vice Chairperson, Accessibility Standards Canada’s Technical Committee on
  Accessible and Equitable Artificial Intelligence Systems
• Vice Chairperson, Accessibility Standards Canada’s Technical Committees on
  Accessibility Requirements for ICT Products and Services
• Vice Chair, International Association of Accessibility Professionals
  Global Leadership Council
• Digital Learning & Technology Lead, Ontario AODA Postsecondary Education
  Standards Development Committee
• Advisory Council Member, Canadian Accessibility Network
• Member of the Ontario AODA Post-secondary Education Accessibility Standards Development Committee (2017-2020)
• Member of the Competencies Development and Recommendation Committee of the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP)
• Co-Founder and Director, Canadian Association for Inclusive Design Research
• Associate Researcher, SMARTLab, University College Dublin, Ireland
• Associate Researcher, Inclusive Design Institute, Toronto, Canada
• Adjunct Professor, OCAD university, Toronto, Canada
• Adjunct Professor, York University, Critical Disabilities Department, Toronto
• Doctoral Committee Member (DDes program) University of Calgary
• Sessional Lecturer (Accessibility & Inclusive Design) University of Toronto
• Member, 1EdTech TrustEd Apps Accessibility Rubric Task Force
• Member, 1EdTech Accessibility Product Steering Committee
• Member, 1EdTech AI Data Rubric Task Force
• Member, 1EdTech AI Data Rubric Project Group
• Member, W3C Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
• Member, Association of Indian Institutes of Technology Alumni, Canada
• Alumna, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, M.Sc. Theoretical Chemistry (1975-77)
• Alumna, University College London, UK, M.Sc. Human-Computer Interaction (2005-07)
• Alumna, University of Toronto, Canada (PhD in Information Studies (2005-10); Post-doctoral research fellow in Information Studies (2010-12)
• Life member, National Centre for Software Technology,  (now Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) Mumbai, India
• Life member, Indian Institute of Banking and Finance (Certified Associate (CAIIB) 1985-86)
• Web accessibility expert with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) – Evaluated WCAG 2.0 candidate implementation websites prior to publication of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 in December 2008.
• Member, ACM Special Interest Groups on Human-Computer Interaction and Accessibility (SIGCHI and SIGACCESS)
• Competent Communicator and Competent Leader, Toastmasters International