Jordan Krick

Jordan Krick

Jordan Krick (they/them) graduated from SUNY Potsdam with a bachelor’s degree in Archeology and History, focusing on Biological Anthropology. After graduation they served in the Peace Corps, before embarking on a life in health care developing fifteen years of experience working in and around emergency medical services where they often served as a trainer and mentor. In addition, they have six years’ experience working in grass roots organizing with the migrant worker community through the Workers’ Center of Central New York and advocacy in the areas of worker’s rights and safety, tenants’ rights, immigrant rights, disability and LGBTQIA+. They also co-founded a Syracuse based harm reduction centered community first aid organization, where they serve as a Stop the Bleed instructor for public education. In their free time, Jordan helps to run an animal rescue operation, Cuse Animal Haus, and they enjoy hiking and hanging out with their cats.

Currently, Jordan serves as a Project Coordinator at Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University, where they manage administrative tasks, assist on grant project proposals, and help with technology support issues.

Rachael A. Zubal-Ruggieri

Rachael A. Zubal-Ruggieri is the Administrative Assistant of the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach at the Burton Blatt Institute. She is a recent non-traditional, cum laude graduate in the Human Development & Family Science program at Falk College, with a Disability Studies Minor, at Syracuse University (SU). Her current research interests include Self-Advocacy, Representations of Disability in Popular Culture, and Interdisciplinary Disability Studies.

Rachael has dedicated her career to improving the lives of people with disabilities, including broad-based support to multiple disability rights initiatives on campus, in the CNY area, and nationally, through many grant-funded projects and opportunities as well as via long-term relationships with community agencies and programs while working for over 30 years at SU’s Center on Human Policy. She is a founding member of the university’s undergraduate disability rights organization, the Disability Student Union (DSU). Rachael serves on the Disability Events Planning Committee, a subcommittee of the Disability Access and Inclusion Council at SU, and is Assistant Editor of Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature. Rachael’s current activities include serving as Co-Advisor of the Self-Advocacy Network (formerly Self-Advocates of CNY), Project Manager for the Disability Poetics video series, and has previously served as a Board Member of Disabled in Action of Greater Syracuse, Inc.

Rachael is also co-creator (with Diane R. Wiener) of “Cripping” the Comic Con, the first of its kind interdisciplinary and international symposium on disability and popular culture, previously held at SU. Rachael is also co-coordinator of the Geek/Art CONfluence, a comic con focused on creativity, inclusion, and diversity in geek culture which is hosted at SU. At conferences and as a guest lecturer, she has for many years presented on the X-Men comic books, Deadpool. popular culture, and disability rights and identities. As a Neurodivergent parent to an Autistic son, Rachael also writes and presents about neurodiversity and autism parenting, seeking to debunk and disrupt traditional representations of “the autism mom.” Their most recent work includes poetry published in Wordgathering and two articles published in the Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, co-authored with Diane R. Wiener.

Celestia Ohrazda

Celestia Ohrazda is a researcher and designer who works across multiple projects at the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University. Her experience and research interest focus on accessibility and usability of web-based technologies and the adoption of innovations specifically media-rich technologies. She has been instrumental in research concentrating on access to and the design of learning technologies for individuals from diverse cultural and ability backgrounds. Her experience as a designer and producer of web-based technologies, coupled with her experience as a researcher, provide her with a unique perspective as a scholar who brings multiple methodologies to bear on the design, dissemination, and evaluation of technology driven interventions.

In 2009 she joined the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) as web developer, instructional designer, research assistant, and survey manager. Her primary responsibilities include the design and development of the BBI’s primary and subsidiary websites; support of distance learning technologies; design and evaluation of survey instrumentation; and the creation and assurance of accessible electronic products.