Sarah Blackstone
Sarah W. Blackstone Ph.D., CCC-SP is president of Augmentative Communication Inc. in Monterey, CA and a partner emeritus of the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Communication Enhancement funded by the National Institute of Disability Research and Rehabilitation (U.S. Department of Education). She is co-founder of the Central Coast Children’s Foundation, the Community Emergency Response Volunteers of the Monterey Peninsula and a former President and a Fellow of the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC). Dr. Blackstone helps coordinate the Patient-Provider Forum and website www.patientprovidercommunication.org.
Kate Lorig
Dr. Kate Lorig received her BS in Nursing from Boston University in 1964 and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chile. She received her MS from the University of California San Francisco and her Doctorate in Public Health in 1980 from the University of California Berkeley. She is a faculty member at Stanford University School of Medicine.
The focus of Dr. Lorig’s research has been the development, evaluation of self-management programs in English and Spanish for people with chronic diseases. Programs are delivered in small groups, via mail, and via the Internet. These studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of low cost self-management interventions in reducing symptoms and improving the quality of life. They have also explored the role of self-efficacy as a predictor and moderator of outcomes.
Lee Mabie
Lee Mabie has advocated on behalf of the disability community for the past five years at AT&T driving initiatives that touch products and services, employees and shaping public policy. As a father of a child with moderate intellectual disabilities and mild physical and mobility disabilities Lee has the privilege of taking emerging consumer ICT and applying it directly to his daughter’s life and feeding back his findings to AT&T. For over two years Lee’s team has run the award-winning AT&T Advisory Panel on Access and Aging (AAPAA) that uses outside stakeholders to shape product development, offerings, employee and public policy.
Chris MacDonell
Chris began her varied career in the health care industry as an occupational therapist after graduating from the University of Southern California. While in California, she became an administrator of a full rehabilitation continuum of care. Chris came to CARF in 1991. She has served as the Managing Director of Medical Rehabilitation and International Medical Rehabilitation and Aging Services during her time with CARF. Chris is a Fellow of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Chris has represented CARF at international, national, regional and local meetings to promote and interpret standards and the use of accreditation as a quality business and clinical strategy throughout the continuum of care.
Alex Mihailidis
Alex Mihailidis is the Barbara G. Stymiest Research Chair in Rehabilitation Technology at University of Toronto and Toronto Rehab. He has been conducting research in the field of intelligent systems in health for the past 15 years, with a specific focus on the development of intelligent homes for elder care.
Jim Mueller
Jim Mueller is an industrial designer with more than 20 years of experience in assistive technology, disability management, and universal design. He is recognized as one of the most experienced practitioners and advocates of universal design - design for people of all ages and abilities - and is one of the authors of the 7 Principles of Universal Design. His clients have included Federal and State agencies, private employers, disability insurers, and product manufacturers.