Jonathan Lazar

Jonathan Lazar PhD, LLM, is a professor in the College of Information Studies (iSchool) at the University of Maryland, where he serves as executive director of the Maryland Initiative for Digital Accessibility (MIDA) and is a faculty member in the Human-Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL). Professor Lazar has previously authored or edited sixteen books, including Accessible Technology and the Developing World (coedited with Michael Stein), Research Methods in Human-Computer Interaction (2nd ed., coauthored with Heidi Feng and Harry Hochheiser), Ensuring Digital Accessibility Through Process and Policy (coauthored with Dan Goldstein and Anne Taylor), Disability, Human Rights, and Information Technology (coedited with Michael Stein), Universal Usability: Designing Computer Interfaces for Diverse User Populations, and Web Usability: A User-Centered Design Approach. Professor Lazar has published nearly two hundred refereed articles in journals, conference proceedings, and edited books, frequently serves as an advisor to US government agencies, and regularly provides testimony at the federal and state levels. Multiple US federal regulations cite his research. At the University of Maryland iSchool, Dr. Lazar teaches courses on human-computer interaction, user-centered design, accessibility in libraries, and legal research methods. Dr. Lazar’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation; the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR); Adobe; and Google. He is the recipient of the 2021 ACM SIGCHI Academy Award, the 2020 ACM SIGACCESS Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computing and Accessibility, the 2017 University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Research, and the 2016 ACM SIGCHI Social Impact Award. Dr. Lazar recently served as the general chair of the ACM ASSETS 2021 conference, and he is a member of the Disability Rights Bar Association. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Maryland, Dr. Lazar was a professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at Towson University, where for fourteen years he served as director of the Information Systems program.