2024 Keynotes

Maha Bali is Professor of Practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo. She has a PhD in Education from the University of Sheffield, UK. She is co-founder of virtuallyconnecting (a grassroots movement that challenges academic gatekeeping at conferences) and co-facilitator of Equity Unbound (an equity-focused, open, connected intercultural learning curriculum, which has also branched into academic community activities Continuity with Care, Socially Just Academia, a collaboration with OneHE: Community-building Resources and MYFest, an innovative 3-month professional learning journey. She writes and speaks frequently about social justice, critical pedagogy, and open and online education. She blogs regularly on her page "Reflecting Allowed" and tweets @bali_maha.

Emily Drabinski is Associate Professor at the Queens (N.Y.) College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. She edits Gender & Sexuality in Information Studies, a book series from Library Juice Press/Litwin Books. Drabinski serves as 2023-24 President of the American Library Association.

Dr. Williams is an Assistant Professor of User Experience Design at Purdue University in Indiana, USA. They are a Just Tech Fellow with the Social Science Research Council, where they are investigating disabled people’s bodily autonomy and social agency through adaptive and assistive technologies. Dr. Rua M. Williams is the Principal Investigator for the CoLiberation Lab, which studies interactions between technology design, technology research practices, and Disability Justice. Dr. Williams deploys Feminist and Anti-Racist approaches to Technoscience, Critical disability Studies, and Science and Technology Studies in the design and evaluation of sociotechnical systems. Through their scholarship they illustrate injustice in technology while simultaneously uplifting marginalized users’ own practices of resistance.