CONFERENCE NEWSLETTER: FILLING IN THE GAPS AND JOINING THE DOTS

THIS WEEK’S REMINDERS

Accessibility

If you have accessibility needs, please email them to conference2025@dsiproject.org
Due to structural barriers, such as parking areas being closed, the university taking priority over room bookings and a lack of funding, the conference will not be fully accessible.
Our team is dedicated to making the event as accessible as possible and will work with anyone who is attending to meet their accessibility requirements and find solutions.

Travel Subsidies

The travel subsidy applications have now closed.
15 people were awarded subsidies to help bring their supports with them. Congratulations!
We thank the National Disability Conference Initiative for their support.

We will be sending out more information about the conference in the coming weeks, including the program, requests for further information, and workshop registrations, so please keep an eye on your emails.

PRESENTER PROFILE

Dr. Tara Brown-Ogilvie

Dr. Tara Brown-Ogilvie (she/her) has over 14 years of experience in the DeafBlind community, working in roles such as vision rehabilitation therapist, tactile sign language interpreter, and orientation and mobility (O&M) specialist. She holds a Ph.D. in Special Education, along with degrees in Sign Language Interpreting and Blind Rehabilitation. Currently, Tara is the Research and Accessibility Specialist at the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults (HKNC) in New York, U.S.A. In her earlier work as an O&M instructor at HKNC, she learned haptics through the HKNC partnership with Hapti-Co. Tara has since developed her own haptic techniques for teaching orientation and mobility. She regularly presents on tactile strategies and practical use of social-haptics in everyday life. If you want to learn more about touch messaging the social-haptic way, sign up for one of the workshops (one with Tara, and the other with Suzanne Wilding-Hart).

Thank you to NextSense and the National Relay Service for sponsoring Tara’s visit to our conference!

WORKSHOP HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK

Better Inclusive Research

For all you research students, higher degree PhD people, those working in the field and wanting to learn more about the complexities and joys of building knowledge with deafblind people and deafblind researchers – we have a stellar facilitator Hannah Mcpierzie with lived experience, and a heavy hitting international panel who are active in the field: Peter Simcock, John Gilroy, Meredith Prain, Diana Tang, Liz Doyle and Yunie Rahmat. This will be chaired by Nina Raymundo. You will learn about each stage of the research process from beginning to end, what barriers there are to inclusion, and how these can be beat!

Thank you to the University of Sydney for supporting HDR/EMCR researchers!