Accessibility Matters

Dr Agata Mrva-Montoya is a lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. Before that, she was the publishing manager at Sydney University Press, where among other things she led the implementation of accessible publishing practices. She has been involved with the Australian Inclusive Publishing Initiative since 2018, the Accessibility Initiative Working Party of the Institute of Professional Editors since 2020, and the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities since 2021.

Greg Alchin is an award-winning inclusioneer, keynote speaker, author and disability advocate with over 30 years’ experience across education, community, commercial and government contexts. He is also the Principal Accessibility Specialist for Service NSW. Greg’s rich and diverse experience provide invaluable insights that can be applied from one context into others. Greg’s own visual impairment as well as his industry certification by both Apple and Microsoft combined with his post-graduate studies in accessibility, enable him to speak with authenticity and authority. Greg uses this powerful mix of personal experience, professional knowledge and practical strategies to speak with authenticity and authority on inclusively designed strategies and technologies that inspire inclusion through innovation.

Laura Brady is an accessibility expert whose priority is always to put users first. She brings more than 25 years of trade publishing experience to this role. For the past fifteen years, she has worked in digital publishing creating and converting ebooks, training publishers on accessible workflows, writing a blog helping developers work more accessibly, and consulting for services organizations about how to publish inclusively while worrying about everyone's reading experience. A sought-after consultant, trainer, and public speaker, Laura advocates with government funders, accessible library organizations, and publisher associations for inclusive publishing issues. Laura is also active at sharing knowledge, building communities, and calling stakeholders in through community groups like #eprdctn, the NNELS Accessible Publishing Summit, and ebookcraft, in addition to serving on the eBound and Accessible Books Consortium’s board of directors. 

Associate Professor Paul Harpur (introductory video) is a leading international and comparative disability rights legal academic having held an academic fellowship with the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, and visiting positions with the Centre for Disability Law and Policy, Institute for Lifecourse & Society, National University of Ireland, Galway and with the Burton Blatt Institute, College of Law, Syracuse University, New York. Following his work at Syracuse University, Associate Professor Harpur has been appointed an International Distinguished Fellow with the Burton Blatt Institute from 2015 onwards and a 2020 academic fellow of the Harvard Law School Project on Disabilities. He is a former Fulbrighter, having been awarded a prestigious Fulbright Future Scholarship entitled Universally Designed for Whom? Disability, the Law and Practice of Expanding the "Normal User".

In 2021 Dr Harpur was awarded a 4 year Future Fellowship, commencing in 2022, with the Australian Research Council entitled Normalizing Ability Diversity through Career Transitions: Disability at Work.