Richard Emil Ladner is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

known for his contributions to both

theoretical computer science Theoretical computer science (TCS) is a subset of general computer science and mathematics that focuses on mathematical aspects of computer science such as the theory of computation, lambda calculus, and type theory. It is difficult to circumsc ...

and

assistive technology Assistive technology (AT) is a term for assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and the elderly. Disabled people often have difficulty performing activities of daily living (ADLs) independently, or even with ...

. Ladner is a professor emeritus at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

Biography

Richard Ladner was born as one of four children of deaf parents. Both of his parents were teachers at the California School for the Deaf when it was in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, and used

American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual lang ...

and speech for communication. He grew up around deaf people and ASL but did not become fluent until he took some ASL classes in his early thirties. Ladner earned his undergraduate degree from

St. Mary's College of California Saint Mary's College of California is a Private college, private Catholic Church, Catholic college in Moraga, California. Established in 1863, it is affiliated with the Catholic Church and administered by the De La Salle Brothers. The college of ...

in 1965, and his doctorate in mathematics from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1971. Among other work, he obtained important results in

computational complexity theory In theoretical computer science and mathematics, computational complexity theory focuses on classifying computational problems according to their resource usage, and relating these classes to each other. A computational problem is a task solved by ...

and in

automata theory Automata theory is the study of abstract machines and automata, as well as the computational problems that can be solved using them. It is a theory in theoretical computer science. The word ''automata'' comes from the Greek word αὐτόματο� ...

. Since 1971, he has been a professor at the

. In 1985, Ladner was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

. In 1995 Ladner was appointed an

ACM Fellow ACM or A.C.M. may refer to: Aviation * AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile * Air chief marshal * Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting * Air cycle machine * Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia Computing ...

, and in 2009 an

IEEE Fellow As of 2019, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has 5,082 members designated Fellow, each of whom is associated with one of the 41 societies under the IEEE. The Fellow grade of membership is the highest level of membershi ...

. He has served as an Area Editor for the Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery, Editor for

SIAM Journal on Computing The ''SIAM Journal on Computing'' is a scientific journal focusing on the mathematical and formal aspects of computer science. It is published by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). Although its official ISO abbreviation is ...

, an Associate Editor for the

Journal of Computer and System Sciences The ''Journal of Computer and System Sciences'' (JCSS) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of computer science. ''JCSS'' is published by Elsevier, and it was started in 1967. Many influential scientific articles have been publishe ...

, and Theory of Computing Systems. He is currently on the Editorial Boards for ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing and Communications of the ACM.

References

External links

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My Path from to Becoming an Accessibility Researcher
American computer scientists Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellow Members of the IEEE University of Washington faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni Saint Mary's College of California alumni Living people 1943 births SIGACCESS award winners {{Compu-scientist-stub