Keynote Speakers

"Conversations With Cay: An Informal Dialogue on the State of Literacy for People Who Are Visually Impaired" Presented by Cay Holbrook, Ph.D., University of British Columbia; Diane P. Wormsley, Ph.D., North Carolina Central University; and Frances Mary D'Andrea, NCLVI Fellow, University of Pittsburgh
7 - 8:30 pm, Thursday, November 12, 2009

Cay Holbrook, Ph.D., University of British Columbia
Cay Holbrook, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada. She received her doctoral degree from Florida State University in 1986 and has prepared teachers of students with visual impairments at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Dr. Holbrook taught children with visual impairments in public school programs in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida and has been actively involved in the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired and the Council for Exceptional Children. She has written and presented numerous workshops to teachers and parents relating to the education of children with visual impairments. Her current research focuses on Learning Media Assessment for students with low vision and the Instructional Needs of Students Who Read Braille. Cay is the co-founder of the Getting In Touch With Literacy Conference, and the first awardee of the Holbrook-Humphries Award.

Diane P. Wormsley, Ph.D., North Carolina Central University
Diane P. Wormsley, Ph.D. is the Brenda Brodie Endowed Chair and Professor of Special Education in Visual Impairment at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). At NCCU she teaches in the Visual Impairment Training Program and is also responsible for the partnership/consortium to promote preparation of teachers of the visually impaired. Prior to her current appointment she served as Co-Director of the National Center for Leadership in Visual Impairment and Program Director of the Visual Impairment Teacher Preparation Program at Pennsylvania College of Optometry. She began her teaching career with visually impaired children at the New York State School for the Blind (NYSSB) in Batavia, New York, and also taught at Narbethong School for Visually Handicapped Children in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Her most memorable teaching experience was in a two-teacher international primary school in the highlands of Papua New Guinea where she was responsible for teaching reading to sighted children in kindergarten through 8th grade. Her passion for braille literacy formed at NYSSB and has continued to this day. She is co-author of Foundations of Braille Literacy, co-editor of Instructional Strategies for Braille Literacy, and author of Braille Literacy: A Functional Approach. 2007 Holbrook-Humphries Award.

Frances Mary D'Andrea, M.Ed., NCLVI Fellow, University of Pittsburgh
D'Andrea is currently a doctoral candidate and National Center for Leadership and Visual Impairment Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh and has been a leading advocate for visually impaired students throughout her career. D'Andrea was a teacher for many years before accepting a job with the American Foundation for the Blind to promote braille literacy on a national scale as director of their National Literacy Center. She has co-authored Assistive Technology for Students Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired: A Guide to Assessment, Instructional Strategies for Braille Literacy, Looking to Learn: Promoting Literacy for Students with Low Vision, and The Braille Trail books, and helped to develop the Braille Bug online at AFB's web site. She has served in leadership roles on a state and national level with the Association for the Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired and is a member of a number of professional organizations, including remaining AFB's representative to the Braille Authority of North America. In 2005 prior to starting her doctoral program, D'Andrea returned to the classroom, which has redoubled her interest in creating public policy and conducting new research that will shed light on the most promising teaching practices. She is the recipient of the fourth GITWL Holbrook-Humphries Award.

"The Evolution of Braille" presented by Abraham Nemeth, Ph.D.
11:30 - 1:30, Friday, November 13, 2009
Born congenitally blind in 1918, Dr. Abraham Nemeth is internationally known for creating a braille code for mathematics in the 1950s. The Nemeth Code has since become the accepted standard and was a landmark step in the opportunity for blind students to engage in scientific studies. He also developed MathSpeak, which is a standard system of reading mathematical formulas out loud. Most recently, Dr. Nemeth has developed a second literary and math code called the Nemeth Uniform Braille System (NUBS), which is currently being reviewed by the Braille Authority of North America. Dr. Nemeth served as chairman of the Michigan Commission for the Blind and was a member of the faculty of the department of mathematics at the University of Detroit for 30 years.

"What is Response to Intervention? Does It Apply to VI?" Presented by Diane Haager, Ph.D., California State University, Los Angeles
8 - 9:30 pm, Friday, November 13, 2009
Dr. Haager is a Full Professor in the Division of Special Education and Counseling at California State University, Los Angeles. Her primary areas of expertise include instruction and assessment for students with learning disabilities, dyslexia and reading disabilities, attention deficit disorders, and behavior disorders. She often provides professional development and consultation for schools focusing on implementing Response to Intervention models (RTI), improving reading instruction for struggling learners, and accommodating students with learning and behavior difficulties. She was the co-author of a landmark book, Evidence-Based Reading Practices for Response to Intervention. Her current research focus is on early reading intervention to prevent reading difficulties for English learners, and the quality of reading instruction provided by special education teachers for students with learning disabilities.

"Differentiated Instruction for English Language Learners" Presented by Sharon Ulanoff, Ph.D., California State University, Los Angeles
4 - 5:30 pm, Saturday November 14, 2009
Dr. Ulanoff is a Professor of Bilingual/Multicultural and Education at California State University, Los Angeles. Her specialty is in the areas of cultural diversity, bilingual education, second language acquisition, and teacher research and inquiry-based instruction, with a focus on access and equity for English learners. She has co-authored Differentiated Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners and published articles on a variety of topics, including vocabulary development for English learners. She has just completed a three year ethnographic study on effective second language literacy practices in an urban, multi-age classroom.

"Findings of the National Reading Panel and Research on Evidence-based Fluency Instruction" presented by D. Ray Reutzel, Ph.D., Utah State University
8 - 9:30 am, Saturday, November 14, 2009
D. Ray Reutzel is the Emma Eccles Jones Distinguished Professor and Endowed Chair of Early Childhood Education at Utah State University. Ray is a former Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Southern Utah University; Associate Dean of Teacher Education in the David O. McKay School of Education; and former Chair of the Department of Elementary Education at Brigham Young University. Dr. Reutzel was an integral part of developing BYU's nationally celebrated Public School Partnership, the field-based Elementary Education program, the Center for Improvement of Teacher Education and Schooling (CITES) and the Utah/CITES Balanced Literacy initiative as a part of the U.S. and Utah's Goals 2000 funding. He recently completed as principal investigator under the Teacher Quality Research Program of the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, a 1 million dollar research grant. He has had national impact as a technical assistant to three federal reading programs and is the author of more than 175 research reports, articles and books on early childhood literacy research. He has served as the state reading coordinator for Utah and is a past president of the Utah Council of the International Reading Association. As a former elementary school teacher, his research focuses on young children's literacy development, especially at-risk populations.

"LIFE, Location Information For Everyone" Presented by Mike May, President, Sendero Group
11 - 12:30, Sunday, November 15, 2009
Mike May has been a pioneer in new product and business development. He worked for the Central Intelligence Agency as a Political Risk Analyst, for the Bank of California in automating wire transfers and cash machines and for TRW starting a new business area. May's start-up ventures have included developing the world's first and only Laser Turntable, inventing a portable heating cushion for sports and medical applications and starting up two companies in adaptive technology for the blind. He founded the Sendero Group to make location information accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired. Sendero invented the first accessible GPS for the blind which it continues to improve and distribute worldwide. May has a Masters' degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He has been a visiting scholar and spoken on electronic navigation for the blind at countless conferences. He has served on numerous boards and is currently on the boards of the Society for the Blind and the Seeing Eye. He also holds the downhill speed skiing record for a totally blind person of 65 miles per hour, one arena where he says there is no room for navigation technology. A book based on Mike May's life, Crashing Through, by best selling author, Robert Kurson, was released in May 2007 and a movie by Fox 2000 is in the works.