NCAM Staff
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Larry Goldberg is WGBH's Director of Media Access and oversees NCAM (the research and development arm) and the two access production/service departments —The Caption Center and Descriptive Video Service. He regularly publishes on media access issues, presents WGBH research at conferences, and consults for government and media and technology companies on access issues. Mr. Goldberg was a pioneer in the development of the emerging captioning system for digital television in the U.S. and is a member of numerous advisory boards at the FCC and across the country . Mr. Goldberg was awarded a patent in 1996 for "Rear Window™," the first closed captioning system for movie theaters and theme parks. Mr. Goldberg has a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Southern California.
Brad Botkin is Director of Technology and Systems Development for NCAM. Over the past decade, Mr. Botkin has overseen development of technical solutions and software applications to enable delivery of captions and descriptive video via analog and digital television, streaming web platforms, CD-ROM, and motion picture theaters. He also developed MAGpie (v1.0 and 2.0), a tool for website developers to create captions and descriptions for multimedia. He holds a B.S. and a M.S. from the University of Massachusetts.
Marcia Brooks is the Project Director for Access to Emergency Alerts for People with Disabilities, funded by the Department of Commerce's Technology Opportunities Program (TOP). She previously led a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to develop PBCore, a shared metadata standard for public broadcasting, and is now managing a subsequent grant from CPB to advance PBCore outreach, training and use. Ms. Brooks served as a senior strategist at a leading Internet marketing agency, consulting for clients including America Online and Lockheed Martin. She has held various management positions at the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and led the development of e-mail and intranet services for the nation's public television stations. She has also consulted for National Public Radio (NPR). Ms. Brooks has a B.A. in Mass Communications from the University of Massachusetts.
Rich Caloggero is an Accessibility Researcher with NCAM. Rich works on NCAM's grant-funded activities and well as with its strategic partners on website accessibility evaluation and repair projects for corporate clients. He also managed the development of STEP (Simple Tool for Error Prioritization), and application that prioritizes the results of automated website evaluation tools, and presents the results to the user in a consistent, understandable way. He is an expert screen reader user, and has worked in the computer field as a programmer, adaptive technology consultant, and Web developer for over 20 years. In addition to his position in NCAM, Rich consults at the Assistive Technology Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Rich holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Geoff Freed is the Project Manager of NCAM's Captioning Solutions for Handheld Media and Mobile Devices and Access to Locally Televised On-Screen Information projects. He is a leading expert on accessible Web-based multimedia and has developed methods and techniques which exploit industry standards and formats, such as QuickTime, RealNetworks and Microsoft streaming media. Mr. Freed is a member of the W3C's Timed Text working group, the WAI's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and Education and Outreach working groups, and participated in the W3C's development of SMIL 2.0. He has a B.A. in English from the University of Nebraska.
Bryan Gould is the Project Manager of NCAM's Effective Practices for Describing Science Content within Digital Talking Books project. Mr. Gould has been with WGBH's Descriptive Video Service (DVS) for nine years and has developed audio descriptions for hundreds of TV shows, films and other projects. He edited the current DVS style guidelines and served as DVS's Operations Manger. He continues to participate in focus groups with blind and visually impaired consumers and to train new describers. He holds a B.A. from Syracuse University and an M.A. from the University of Massachusetts, both in American History.
Trisha O'Connell is the New Projects Developer for NCAM and explores areas of need in new technologies and in the convergence of technology, media, disability, and education. Ms. O'Connell works with NCAM staff, educators, industry leaders, and government agencies to identify opportunities and develop projects to expand and refine the application and use of media access technologies. She has worked in Media Access at WGBH since 1988, serving as director of The Caption Center prior to joining NCAM. She holds an M.B.A. from the Simmons Graduate School of Management.
Madeleine Rothberg is the Director of Research and Development for NCAM. She provides support and leadership for all NCAM project directors, contributes technical expertise on access solutions, and coordinates resources and deliverables across projects. Previously she served as Project Director of the CD-ROM Access Project, an NSF-funded research project developing prototypes and guidelines to make science, engineering and mathematics multimedia software accessible to blind and visually impaired students. An experienced multimedia content developer, Ms. Rothberg has an Ed.M. in Technology in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Peter Villa is the business manager for NCAM. He manages the financial, legal and administrative activities for the department.
Mary Watkins is the Outreach Director for WGBH's Media Access Group. Ms. Watkins is responsible for outreach and communications for NCAM and for WGBH's Access Services unit (The Caption Center and Descriptive Video Service®. In addition to developing print and online materials and conducting workshops and presentations about WGBH's access efforts for diverse audiences, Ms. Watkins oversees the division's press relations and consumer affairs activities. She holds a B.A. in philosophy from Boston College.
