Adventures in Accessibility

Transcript: rmad.ac/AIAe073

Dr. Temple Grandin is an academic inventor and animal behavior scientist. She's a proponent of the humane treatment of livestock for slaughter and the author of more than 60 scientific papers on animal behavior. Dr. Grandin is a consultant to the livestock industry, where she offers advice on animal behavior.

As an autistic person, Dr. Grandin did not talk until she was three and a half years old. Eventually, she became one of the first autistic people to document the insights she gained from her personal experiences with autism. Today she's a prominent author and speaker on both autism and animal behavior, and a professor of animal science at Colorado State University. She also has a successful career consulting on both livestock handling, equipment design, and animal welfare. Dr. Grandin has been featured on NPR and BBC and has appeared on national TV shows such as Larry King Live, 20/20, 60 Minutes, Fox and Friends, and she has a 2010 Ted Talk.

Articles about Dr. Grandin have appeared in Time Magazine, New York Times, Discover Magazine, Forbes and USA Today. HBO made an Emmy Award-winning movie about her life, and she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016. When Dr. Grandin was young, she was considered weird and teased and bullied in high school. The only place she had friends were activities where there was a shared interest such as horses, electronics, or model rockets. Mr. Carlock, her science teacher, was an important mentor who encouraged her interest in science. When she had a new goal of becoming a scientist, she had a reason for studying. Today, half of the cattle in the United States are handled in facilities she has designed.


Connect with Temple: 

Welcome to Temple Grandin's Official Autism Website

Temple Grandin's Website

Temple Grandin - Books and DVDs

Amazon.com: Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions: 9780593418369: Grandin PhD, Temple: Books

Temple Grandin | Watch the Movie on HBO | HBO.com

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Transcript: rmad.ac/AIAe072

Georgina is a professor emerita of English at the University of California Berkeley, where she taught creative writing and disability studies. Her collection of personal essays, Sight Unseen, is a classic in the field of disability studies. Essays include an autobiographical account of Kleege's own blindness and a cultural critique of depictions of blindness in literature, film, and language. Many of these essays are required reading for students in disability studies, as well as visual culture, education, public health, psychology, philosophy, and ophthalmology.

Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller transcends the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction to reimagine the life and legacy of the celebrated disability icon. Kleege's latest book More Than Meets the Eye: What Blindness Brings to Art is concerned with blindness and visual art, how blindness is represented in art, how blindness affects the lives of visual artists, and how museums can make visual art accessible to people who are blind or low vision. Georgina has lectured and served as a consultant to art institutions around the world. She now lives in New York City. 

Connect with Georgina:

Georgina Kleege | English

Sight Unseen: Kleege, Georgina: 9780300076806: Amazon.com: Books

Blind Rage: Letters to Helen Keller - Kindle edition by Kleege, Georgina. Reference Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Amazon.com: More than Meets the Eye: What Blindness Brings to Art: 9780190604363: Kleege, Georgina: Books

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Transcript: rmad.ac/AIAe071

Thomas is the executive director of the California Achieving a Better Life Experience Program, or CalABLE. Through his work with CalABLE, Thomas helps people with disabilities save and invest while protecting their access to benefits. Prior to joining CalABLE, he served in the California Department of Veterans Affairs and the office of the governor. Thomas is autistic and he is the proud father of two sons with autism and other developmental disabilities

Learn more about CalABLE:

ABLE today
Home - CalABLE
CalABLE
Colorado ABLE | Giving Those With Disabilities the Ability to Save
CalABLE (@wearecalable) • Instagram photos and videos

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Transcript: rmad.ac/AIAe070

Gaelynn won NPR's Tiny Desk Contest in 2016. Since then, she has captivated audience around the world with her haunting original songs and traditional fiddle tunes. Over the years, she has collaborated and performed with many notable artists such as Michael Stipe from REM, The Decemberists, Wilco, Lowe, and the industrial rock supergroup Pigface. In early 2022, Gaelynn composed and performed the music for Macbeth on Broadway, which starred Daniel Craig. The following year, she wrote a musical fable for the stage called Invisible Fences with the disabled author and playwright Kevin Kling.

Music aside, Gaelynn Lea is a sought-after public speaker and disability advocate around the topics of disability culture, inclusion, and accessibility in the arts. In 2021, she co-founded the organization Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities with fellow artist-activist Lachi. In 2024, she was awarded both the Disability Futures Fellowship and the Whippoorwill Arts Fellowship for her music and disability advocacy. She is currently finishing up her debut book due out in 2026. Linger in the Sun will be a love letter to everybody, a warm, funny, and deeply felt memoir about disability, music, and the messy creativity of an artist's life.

Connect with Gaelynn Lea:

GAELYNN LEA – Musician & Public Speaker
Creative Living for Every Body with Gaelynn Lea | Substack
"I Wait" by Gaelynn Lea
Judith Heumann’s Fight for Disability Rights (feat. Ali Stroker) - Drunk History


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Transcript: rmad.ac/AIAe069

Sarah Todd Hammer is a three-time published author, speaker, and disability advocate. After becoming disabled when she was eight years old, she immersed herself in the disability advocacy space. She co-authored and published her first book about her disability journey at age 11, followed by two more books that follow along her life as a disabled teen at ages 14 and 17. Now at age 23, she's a graduate of Davidson College and a disability social media influencer, speaker, and consultant. With a following of over 300,000 collectively, she provides disability education in a fun, positive manner on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. She also speaks to schools and companies about her disability experience and the importance of accessibility.

Connect with Sarah Todd:

Sarah Todd Hammer
Sarah Todd Hammer - YouTube
Sarah Todd Hammer (@sarahtoddhammer) • Instagram photos and videos
ST Hammer (@sarahtoddhammer) | TikTok

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Transcript: rmad.ac/AIAe068

Emmett is a disability justice practitioner and student activist passionate about creating disabled, decolonial, and anti-oppressive communities. He's a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, majoring in political science and gender and women's studies, conducting research on how definitions of political personhood intersect with electoral access for disabled voters.

They have previously served as an intern for the American Association of People with Disabilities; the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; and for the Department of Health Services for the state of Wisconsin. Lockwood helped organize the Disability Cultural Center Coalition at UW-Madison, which successfully established the UW-Madison Disability Cultural Center in 2023, the 13th such center in the United States.

Connect with Emmett:

Emmett Lockwood (@emmettlockwood.bsky.social) — Bluesky
Email: [email protected] 

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Transcript: rmad.ac/AIAe067

Delila is a high school senior from Dallas, Texas who was born with a rare genetic disorder called CHARGE syndrome, which can affect a person's eyes, hearing, heart, growth, and more. As a deafblind individual, Delila has limited vision in one eye and relies on a bone anchored hearing auditory implant to hear. She communicates with confidence signing her words to ensure the deaf community feels included.

Delila authored a book titled In CHARGE of My Life, a book about her childhood growing up and discovering life through a deafblind lens. In her book, she talks about overcoming many trials and struggles such as shyness, feeling different, not fitting in and low self-esteem. She realizes that she can get help and she's not alone, and that it's okay to have those types of feelings through life's ups and downs. Delila proves herself time and time again with her determination and willpower.

Her life experience has helped her mature and become a remarkable person with a huge, caring heart. Delila sees a bright future for herself and wants to encourage other students that are feeling lost or frustrated to be confident and shine

Connect with Delila:

Delila Vasquez (@delila.incharge) • Instagram photos and videos
In CHARGE of My Life: Vasquez, Delila, Sapir, Crystal: 9781630665623: Amazon.com: Books

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Transcript: rmad.ac/AIAe066

Nicole Cyrille is an actor, voice-over artist, and disability advocate focused on fostering inclusion and authentic representation in entertainment. With a diverse background on stage and screen, Nicole brings powerful performances to life across genres. As a voice-over artist, she lends her voice to characters and narrations with versatility and emotional depth. She also performs Audio Description for shows like Grey’s Anatomy and provides live Audio Description for high-profile events such as the Grammys and Tonys, making content more accessible to everyone.

Beyond her craft, Nicole is a committed advocate for breaking down barriers for performers with disabilities. She champions authentic casting, accessible production spaces, and fair treatment for disabled artists. Recognized for her leadership, Nicole collaborates with industry professionals to promote inclusion and expand opportunities for disabled talent. Through her art and advocacy, Nicole is reshaping narratives around disability and proving that diverse representation enhances storytelling for all.

Connect with Nicole:

Nicole Cyrille (@nicole.cyrille) • Instagram photos and videos
Nicole Cyrille (@nicole.cyrille) • Threads, Say more
Nicole Cyrille (@nicolecyrille.bsky.social) — Bluesky

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Transcript: rmad.ac/AIAe065

Rebecca Rosenberg is an engineer, entrepreneur, speaker, and a person with albinism. Growing up she struggled to find assistive technologies that supported her needs as a person with moderate vision impairment. In 2019, Rebecca founded ReBokeh to develop assistive technologies specifically for the albinism and moderate low vision communities.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Bucknell University, Rebecca began coursework at the Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design (CBID) where she received her Master’s degree of the same title. Following her masters, she was awarded an Abell Foundation Fellowship to assist in developing and teaching the Biodesign curriculum to first year masters students. She also served as the project lead for VectorCam, a global health initiative aimed at using artificial intelligence to combat malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.

Rebecca now devotes her full time to ReBokeh: having deployed the technology to a growing base of users in over 70 countries worldwide and speaking to various groups on the unique challenges of the moderate low vision community.

Connect with Rebecca:

Website: Home | ReBokeh
ReBokeh Vision Technologies, Inc. | LinkedIn
ReBokeh • Vision Assist Technology 📱 (@rebokehvision) • Instagram photos and videos

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Transcript: rmad.ac/AIAe064

Katherine Beattie is a Los Angeles born television writer/producer and action sports enthusiast. While she has spent most of her professional career writing police procedurals, she considers herself a comedian at heart. But regardless of what she’s writing, Katherine is a champion for authentic and nuanced portrayals of Disabled People and other historically excluded communities on screen, and for their inclusion behind the scenes.

As one of the pioneers of wheelchair motocross (WCMX), Katherine was the first woman in the world to land a backflip on a wheelchair. She competes on the Adaptive Surfing Professionals World Tour, and is a member of USA Surfing’s parasurfing national team. She will represent Team USA at her 4th ISA World Parasurfing Championships this November in Huntington Beach.

Connect with Katherine:

Katherine Beattie (@ktbeattie) • Instagram photos and videos

Connect with the Rocky Mountain ADA Center at RockyMountainADA.org or find us on social media. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts!