Ralph Braun is the founder and CEO of the Braun Corporation. Diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy in 1947, he began using a wheelchair for mobility. Determined to maintain his independence, he...
Champions of Change: STEM Equality For Americans With Disabilities
The White House honors fourteen individuals as Champions of Change for leading the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math for people with disabilities in education and employment. These leaders are are proving that when the playing field is level, people with disabilities can excel in STEM, develop new products, create scientific inventions, open successful businesses, and contribute equally to the economic and educational future of our country.
Joseph Sullivan is president of Duxbury Systems, Inc., a small company that has specialized in software for braille since its founding in 1975, and which now employs two blind people and provides...
University of North Texas (UNT) Biochemistry graduate student Nasrin Taei is developing a model peptide system to investigate the effects of mutations that cause sudden cardiac arrest in young...
Maria Dolores Cimini, Ph.D. is the Assistant Director for Prevention and Program Evaluation at the University at Albany Counseling Center and has served as the Principal Investigator for over six...
As a professional and a parent, Virginia Stern has been working for more than four decades to raise expectations of persons with disabilities, their families, educators and employers, especially...
Steve Jacobs, president of IDEAL Group, is dedicated to enhancing the accessibility of STEM curriculum for students with disabilities. IDEAL Group offers software that translates printed STEM...
Rafael San Miguel began his career at NASA working on the Space Shuttle program, and has spent the past 23 years as a scientist for The Coca-Cola Company. He also serves as a board member of the...
David H. Rose, EdD, is a developmental neuropsychologist and educator whose primary focus is on the development of new technologies for learning. In 1984, Dr. Rose co-founded CAST, a not-for-...
Christine Reich is Director of Research and Evaluation at the Museum of Science, Boston, one of the world's largest science centers, and oversees a department that conducts research and evaluation...
George Kerscher began his IT innovations in 1987 and coined the term "print disabled." George is dedicated to developing technologies that make information not only accessible, but also fully...
As a child in the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind in 1949, John Boyer found that contemporary scientific material in braille was almost non-existent. John has never lost the...
Dr. Dimitri Kanevsky is a research staff member in the Speech and Language Algorithms Department at the IBM T.J.Watson Research Center. At IBM, he developed the first Russian automatic speech...
Henry Wedler is a graduate student at the University of California, Davis, working towards his Ph.D. in organic chemistry. Inspired by programs offered by the National Federation of the Blind in...
Sina Bahram is a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina State University; where he researches Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Sina's primary interest is the dynamic...