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Cheri Dowling is the director of advocacy for the American Society for Deaf Children and
the parent coordinator of the Maryland State Family Support and Resource Center.
She is the parent representative on the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Council
of Maryland, was recently appointed as the parent representative on the Maryland
Advisory Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, serves as a member of the Maryland
State Parent to Parent Steering Committee, and is a member of various other committees.
Cheri also served as the president of the Maryland School for the Deaf PTCA for
five years and has served as treasurer for two years. She lives in Woodbine, MD
with her husband and their two children, 14-year-old Patrick, who is Deaf, and 11-year-old
Ryan, who is hearing.
Larry Hawkins brings 35 years' experience in the field of deaf education to his ongoing
service as an advocate for individuals who are deaf. He began his career as a teacher
at the Oklahoma School for the Deaf (OSD), after which he became director of the
teacher-training program in deaf education at the University of Science and Arts
of Oklahoma in Chickasha. He ultimately returned to OSD as its superintendent in
2001.
Mr. Hawkins has served on several boards, including the Council on Education of
the Deaf, the American Society for Deaf Children, and the American College Educators
of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. He has also served on special committees for the
American Speech and Hearing Association and the National Association of the Deaf.
A published author, Mr. Hawkins’ works can be found in various Gallaudet publications,
the American Annals of the Deaf, the ERIC files, and the Endeavor,
of which he also served as managing editor.
Robert Newhouse has been a media relations representative for educational audiovisual
materials for over 30 years. In that timeframe he has worked with such prestigious
agencies as WGBH in Boston and Annenberg Media. Presently, his responsibilities
include educational media sales for K–12 and the college market in Florida, Georgia,
North Carolina, and South Carolina. He also works with the U.S. State Department
to acquire media for American schools operating on U.S. military bases.
Mr. Newhouse has worked with the Described and Captioned Media Program for several
years. He will provide a bridge between the DCMP and the educational media industry,
keeping the organization informed about new materials that would assist students
in the classroom. He will also help inform producers about accessible materials
and advocate for their use.
Jamie Pope is executive director of the American Association of the Deaf-Blind (AADB),
a national consumer organization of, for, and by people with both hearing and vision
loss. Prior to AADB, she was the technical assistance specialist with the National
Technical Assistance Consortium for Children and Youth who are Deaf-Blind (NTAC).
While at NTAC, she worked with six state deaf-blind projects from the Midwest on
training needs related to deaf-blind children. Now giving presentations and developing
publications and informational materials on deaf-blindness, she has become widely
known as a deaf-blind professional and can bring this unique perspective to the
advisory board.
Dr. Stuart Wittenstein is an experienced braille teacher and administrator in programs
for children who are blind or visually impaired in Texas, New York, and New Jersey.
He is currently in his 13th year as superintendent of the California School for
the Blind. He has also been an adjunct professor in the programs to prepare teachers
of visually impaired learners at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Hunter
College.
His published writings and presentations have been primarily in the areas of braille
literacy, policy and legislation, the history of tactile reading and writing, and
the need for specialized services for individuals with visual impairments. He is
co-editor of the book Collaborative Assessment:
Working with Students Who are Blind or Visually Impaired, Including Those with Additional
Disabilities. Dr. Wittenstein is a past president of the Division of Visual Impairments of the Council of Exceptional Children. In 1993 he received the
Division's Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award, and in 2006 he received the
Division's Distinguished Service Award.
Dr. Wittenstein is the president of the Council of the Schools for
the Blind, an
international organization of specialized schools serving blind children.
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Max Duckler, president and founder of CaptionMax, has long been a prominent figure
in the television post-production industry. His background in television was at
first as a freelance video editor, and he later became the head of post-production
of one of the country’s first digital post-production facilities. Mr. Duckler gained
video engineering experience on the job and received numerous awards for editing
and special effects. In 1993 he brought his knowledge of management, technology,
and television production together to form CaptionMax, a full-service captioning,
subtitling, and descriptive video company.
Mr. Duckler helped develop the Captioning Quality Initiative, the first-ever meeting
of captioning and description agencies, which eventually grew into the Accessible
Media Industry Coalition (AMIC) of which he serves on the Executive Committee. Max
is passionate about accessibility, technology, and freedom of speech and expression.
He credits these combined passions with the continued success and growth of CaptionMax
into new areas of media accessibility.
Susan LaVenture is the executive director of the National Association for Parents
of Children with Visual Impairments (NAPVI). NAPVI is a national, nonprofit organization
of, by, and for parents committed to providing support to the parents of children
who are blind or visually impaired. Her involvement began with the organization
of a grassroots movement in response to her own son’s diagnosis of retinoblastoma,
a rare form of infant eye cancer.
Ms. LaVenture leads and directs the association’s programs that serve families throughout
the United States, providing information, support, and networking resources. She
often lectures before student groups at Harvard Medical School, and she continues
to influence the development of organizations around the world, strongly focusing
on the significant role of parents in their child’s development, education, and
medical care.
Edgar B. Palmer is the associate dean of the New Student Orientation
Programs and Service Animals at
Gallaudet University, the world’s only university in which all programs and services
are specifically designed to accommodate students who are deaf or hard of hearing.
He is ABD in special education administration and is also pursuing a Ph.D. in history.
In addition to his personal experience as a deaf professional, Mr. Palmer has been
employed as both a teacher and counselor. He has also served on a variety of boards,
including the Association of Late-Deafened Adults, Inc. (regional director and president-elect),
Maryland School for the Deaf (vice president), American Deafness and Rehabilitation
Association, the Western Maryland College Advisory Board, and also served as treasurer
for the D.C. Area Black Deaf Advocates.
Paul Schroeder oversees all of the American Foundation for the Blind’s (AFB) national
programmatic efforts in aging, education, employment, literacy, and technology.
He is intimately involved with AFB’s technology initiatives, including efforts to
develop mainstream products and services that are accessible to people who are blind
or have low vision.
Mr. Schroeder is regularly called upon to provide input on a variety of issues to
governmental agencies, private companies, and nonprofit organizations. His policy
expertise and activities include the areas of telecommunications and technology
policy, vocational rehabilitation, education, and public health. He is also the
senior contributing editor to AccessWorld: Technology for Consumers with Visual Impairments.
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