The “GitHub Copilot for Disabled Developers” Advisory Committee
Our Advisors Are World-Class Leaders
It is most apparent that the primary beneficiary demographic of the proposed “GitHub Copilot for Disabled Developers” research study and support program is that of the participating disabled developers. The important secondary beneficiaries of this project’s agenda are the projects and organizations in which our participating developers will contribute their programming efforts. These participating projects and organizations will be spread among the domains of Digital Humanities, Cultural Heritage Preservation, Citizen Science, and Open Source Software.
Identifying, recruiting, and facilitating participation among this diverse range of projects and organizations will be an important strategic agenda as we plan implementation of the “GitHub Copilot for Disabled Developers” program. To this end, I am pleased to announce the initial members of our program’s Advisory Committee. These wonderful people are distinguished leaders in their respective fields of research and professional activities. This committee’s mentoring and advisement will be invaluable during the formative stage of our project design and development.
The initial members of the “GitHub Copilot for Disabled Developers” Advisory Committee are:
- Darlene Cavalier: Domains — Citizen Science, Environmental and Public Science Policy. As founder of SciStarter.org and professor of practice at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Darlene is a globally recognized leader in the Citizen Science movement. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences “Designing Citizen Science to Support Science Learning” committee.
- Andreas Maier: Domains — Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Medical Imaging, and Digital Humanities. As Director of the Pattern Recognition Lab at Germany’s FAU university and a senior leadership team member of the EU’s Time Machine Project/Organization, Andreas brings a unique set of skills and knowledge that unite the domains of cutting edge computer science and cultural heritage preservation.
- Alistair McEwan: Domains — Computer Science, Disability Research and Assistive Technology. As Chair of Technology and Innovation at the University of Sydney’s School of Biomedical Engineering and Chief Investigator of the ARC Training Centre for Innovative BioEngineering, Alistair is the first of our advisors to bring a deep knowledge and professional network connection in the all-important fields of artificial intelligence and assistive technology as applied to the field of disability research.
- William Mattingly: Domains — Machine Learning, Digital Humanities, Data Science. William is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution Data Science Lab in collaboration with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.While his applied expertise is rooted in cultural heritage preservation, William is also a prolific creator of freely available YouTube instructional videos and associated GitHub code and dataset repositories focused on developing skills for Python-based Machine Learning for use in Digital Humanities research.
- Julia Noordegraaf: Domains — Digital Humanities, Cultural Heritage, and Citizen Science. Julia is professor of Digital Heritage in the department of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam and director of the Amsterdam Centre for Cultural Heritage and Identity. Like Andreas, Julia is a senior management team member of the EU’s Time Machine Project/Organization.
I am honored and immensely thankful to have these five superstar professionals to help me realize my dream of designing, securing funding, and implementing the “GitHub Copilot for Disabled Developers” research study and support program.
Jim Salmons is a seventy-one year old post-cancer Digital Humanities Citizen Scientist. His primary research is focused on the development of a Ground Truth Storage format providing an integrated complex document structure and content depiction model for the study of digitized collections of print era magazines and newspapers. A July 2020 fall at home resulted in a severe spinal cord injury that has dramatically compromised his manual dexterity and mobility.
Jim was fortunate to be provided access to the GitHub Copilot Technology Early Access Community during his initial efforts to get back to work on the Python-based tool development activities of his primary research interest. Upon experiencing the dramatic positive impact of GitHub Copilot on his own development productivity, he became passionately interested in designing a research and support program to investigate and document the use of this innovative programming assistive technology for use by disabled developers.
