Panel Discussion on Reasonable Accommodation
Panelist will consist of 3 experts within the disability community as well as experts around the reasonable accommodation program. The discussions will take a deeper dive into why accommodations are important for people with disabilities to do their jobs. They will also be discussing the common struggles people with disabilities within the work place face and how the reasonable accommodation program will strive to remove those barriers.
Agenda
- 1:00pm to 1:10pm - Welcoming remarks by Danny Dickerson, Diversity & Inclusion, Director
- 1:10pm to 1:15pm - Introduction of Panelists
- 1:15pm to 2:00pm - Panelist remarks with Q&A
NOTE: If you have any questions for the panelist in advance of the event, please email: edi.guidance@nih.gov.
Facilitator
Kathleen Tepas - Legislative Coordinator, NIAAA
Kathleen Tepas currently serves as the Legislative Coordinator for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). She joined NIAAA in 2013 following completion of NIH’s Management Intern (MI) Program. As part of the MI program, Ms. Tepas gained valuable experience working in the NIH Office of Legislative Policy and Analysis (OLPA), on The Hill with the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and at other NIH Institutes. Prior to entering the MI Program, Ms. Tepas served as a nurse in the NIH Clinical Center, moving from direct patient care to providing clinical expertise in protocol implementation, data abstraction, collection and reporting for a variety of clinical trials conducted for the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Panelists
Stephon Scott - Branch Chief, Access & Equity at NIH
Stephon Scott has over 19 years of federal government service (military & civilian). He currently serves as Branch Chief of EDI’s Access & Equity Branch. There, he leads the EDI Accessibility Consultancy at NIH, whose portfolio of services include Language Access, Reasonable Accommodation, and EEO Guidance. He has served as the Team Leader and Subject Matter Expert for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Reasonable Accommodation Program (RAP), Office of Equal Opportunity & Civil Rights (OEOCR). While at CMS, Mr. Scott redesigned and rebranded OEOCR/RAP. As a part of his work, he led a team of diverse professionals (reasonable accommodation coordinators, sign language interpreters, personal assistants, and program analysts). He has conducted EEO and RA training for Senior Executives and new managers, analyzed and resolved hundreds of complex reasonable accommodation requests, and provided technical assistance to the OEOCR Civil Rights Team regarding (Title VI) language access provisions.
Prior to CMS, Mr. Scott served the State of New Mexico, the University of New Mexico, and Albuquerque Public Schools as an educator, community outreach coordinator, project coordinator, diversity trainer, language access facilitator and collaborator, and higher education academic advisor.
As a law student, Mr. Scott served as a legal intern with the Office of General Counsel, Office of the Governor, Chief Counsel, State of New Mexico. He also worked as a law clerk with The Pueblo of Laguna Tribal Courts, Office of the Prosecutor and with the Bernalillo County Attorney’s Office, Bernalillo County, New Mexico. Mr. Scott’s professional paper, entitled “WHITES ONLY” Racially Restrictive Real Estate Covenants: Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1940-1948, earned him the Ferrel Heady Award for Most Outstanding Professional Paper, 2007-2008.
Mr. Scott’s watch-phrase is "where there is will and opportunity, advancement is sure to follow!"
Mr. Scott is also United States Army combat veteran. He is married to his “North Star” and is the father of three children and three step children, all of whom are blessings.
Keri Gray - Director of NextGen Initiatives
Keri Gray is the Director of NextGen Initiatives at Disability:IN. In her work, she builds and manages programs for approximately 1,000 college students and graduates with disabilities each year through the Mentorship Exchange and Talent Accelerator programs, NextGen Council, and their Alumni Network. These programs collaborate with over 70 companies and provide professional guidance so that students are equipped with knowledge and skills to transition from school to work. Additionally, Keri explores disability conversations with college students so that they are prepared to navigate how social topics impact their professional career and networks.
Keri was raised in Longview, Texas and currently resides in the Washington, DC metro area. She attended college at Abilene Christian University where she received bachelor’s degrees in political science and Communication, and then a master’s degree in Communication. Keri identifies as a Black woman with disabilities. In her work, she actively utilizes a framework of intersectionality- meaning that her work intersects with building recruitment and programming for people of color, women, AND people with disabilities.
Bruce Bailey - Accessibility Specialist, Information Technology Specialist, US Access Board
Bruce Bailey is an IT Specialist on staff at the Access Board. Bruce’s main job is to provide technical assistance to anyone asking about 508.
Bruce also has lead responsibility for the Access Board web site and advising on the 508 conformance of the various system used by the agency. Bruce has had the remarkable fortune of being able to work full time in the field of IT accessibility for about thirty years now, with half that time in Federal service. Bruce contributed to the development of WCAG 2.0 and is an invited expert with the W3C Accessibility Guidelines Working Group. He has a Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy New York, and a Master’s Degree in Education from the State University of New York at Albany.
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