Disability Specialist, DRES

Christy Blew is a Disability Specialist in Alternative Media Production for Accessible Media Services (AMS) in the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She joined AMS in July of 2021 after 15 years as an IT Accessibility Specialist at DRES, finding her greatest success in helping to eliminate stigmas and myths that have been associated with IT Accessibility through advocating and educating. Among courses in Word, PPT, and PDF, Christy has developed a free online course, IT Accessibility 101, which is used by instructors as well as their classes to learn about the basics of Digital Accessibility. She has worked with converting music for assistive technology for one and a half years now. Christy has held memberships with the W3C Protocols and Formats working group and the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). She serves on several campus initiatives including the Technology Accessibility Review Committee (TARC) on the University of Illinois Campus. You will also find her collaborating with other Big10 Universities to develop IT accessibility solutions to make the U of I campus a better place for everyone, including those with disabilities.