Cheri Hofmann

Cheri Hofmann

Cheri Hofmann serves as ADA Distance Learning and Training Coordinator at the Southeast ADA Center. She is a recognized voice for ADA technical assistance and training across the Southeast ADA Center’s eight-state region for businesses, state and local government, and people with disabilities.

Cheri began her career in 1976 working with the Federal Government as a training coordinator. During her 16 years in federal service, she worked with the Staff Judge Advocates Office as a paralegal and at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as a paralegal assistant, gaining experience in legal, technical writing, training, contracting, procurement, and architecture and engineering design. In 2000, she began working with the Independent Living Movement as the Advocacy/Outreach Coordinator for the Center for Independent Living (CIL) Disability Resource Center. She joined the Southeast ADA Center in 2002 as a part-time ADA Technical Assistant and became full-time in 2003. Throughout her career, Cheri has been involved in volunteering, fundraising, and researching laws for people with disabilities.

Cheri holds a Bachelor’s degree from Troy University, and ADA Coordinator certifications from the University of Missouri’s ADA Coordinator Training Certification Program and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Celestia Ohrazda

Celestia Ohrazda is an Information Design Specialist. Her professional experience and interests focus on the accessibility and usability of web-based technologies and the adoption of innovations, specifically media-rich technologies. She joined BBI in 2009, and her primary responsibilities include the design and development of 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. She works across many of BBI’s projects and has a particularly central role in the Southeast ADA Center.

Celestia’s experience as a designer and producer of web-based technologies, coupled with her experience as a researcher, provides her with a unique perspective as a scholar who brings multiple methodologies to bear on the design, dissemination, and evaluation of technology-driven interventions.

Celestia holds a B.A. in English, an M.S. and a Certificate of Advanced Study (C.A.S) in Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation from Syracuse University.

Kate Battoe

Kate Battoe is a Program Assistant at the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University, where she assists with managing the Disability Rights Bar Association membership, serving as the point person for processing new student and attorney members.

Kate joined BBI in March 2012. She has worked on BBI’s Demand Side Employment project, which studies employment patterns of people with disabilities and seeks to educate employers and employees to increase job retention rates. She has also assisted with research on various projects, written monthly articles for BBI’s newsletter, worked extensively with the Technical Assistance and Continuing Education Center (TACE) collecting, analyzing, and writing reports based on training session data, and played a major role in creating the Communication Hope through Assistive Technology (CHAT) pilot camp in 2013. Outside of BBI, Kate is a public speaker on many aspects of living with a disability. She has been a guest speaker at Syracuse University’s graduate classes on Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), and she helps train employees at Advocates Inc. on presuming competence, caregiver versus support staff mindsets, and different methods of communication.

Kate holds a B.A. in history from Le Moyne College, and a J.D. from Syracuse University College of Law.