Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Information Technology

February/March 2015

Volume 5, Issue 1

Welcome to the February/March 2015 issue of the CMD-IT eNewsletter! This issue honors Dr. Richard Ladner, recipient of the 2015 Richard A. Tapia Achievement Award for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science and Diversifying Computing! Congratulations, Richard, on your well deserved recognition!

Best regards,

CMD-IT Leadership

CMD-IT News

Dr. Richard Ladner Receives Achievement Award

at the 2015 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of

Diversity in Computing Conference

Dr. Richard Lader with Dr. Valerie Taylor (CMD-IT Executive Director), Dr. Richard Tapia and Dr. Charles Isbell (Tapia 2015 General Chair)

On Friday, February 20, 2015 Dr. Richard E. Ladner was presented with the Richard A. Tapia Achievement Ward for Scientific Scholarship, Civic Science and Diversifying Computing. Dr. Ladner is a Professor in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. In addition, he is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and in the Department of Linguistics. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Gallaudet University and a founder and secretary/treasure of the CMD-IT Board of Directors.

Dr. Ladner received the Richard Tapia Achievement award in recognition of his incredible commitment and contributions to the disability community in computing. After many years of research in theoretical computer science, he turned his attention to accessibility technology research, especially technology for deaf, deaf-blind, hard-of-hearing, and blind people. He continues to work in design and analysis of algorithms, cache performance of algorithms,

network algorithms for media-on-demand, and data compression algorithms. He has continuing interests in automata-based computational complexity theory and distributed computing.

From 1994 to 2005, as part of the DO-IT Project, he held a one-week summer workshop for disabled high school students, encouraging them to pursue college programs and careers in science, mathematics, and engineering. In 2006 he organized the Vertical Mentoring Workshop for the Blind in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. He organized the Summer Academy for Advancing Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Computing in 2007-2012. Dr. Ladner is the principle investigator of AccessComputing, an NSF Broadening Participation in Computing Alliance for Access to Computing Careers.

Dr. Ladner has supervised or co-supervised twenty-four students on their PhD dissertation and seven on their M.S. theses. He has supervised numerous undergraduate research projects, including the projects of two recipients of the CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Award.

Dr. Ladner was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985-85 and a Fulbright Scholar in 1993. He served as Pacific Region Representative on the Council of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). He served as Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group in Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) from 2005-2009. He is an ACM Fellow and IEEE Fellow. He is a recipient of the 2004 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM). He is the recipient of the 2008 Computer Research Association's A. Nico Habermann Award and winner of the 2008 Purpose Prize. He was the Outstanding Service Award winner at the University of Washington in 2009.