Luis Pérez

As the Disability & Digital Inclusion Lead for CAST, Luis promotes the creation, delivery and use of high quality accessible educational materials and technologies to support equitable learning opportunities for all students. Luis is embedded with the Postsecondary and Workforce Development group at CAST that works to increase access to middle- and high-income careers for populations underrepresented in the workforce, including people with disabilities. Luis’s perspective is informed by his own lived experience as a person with a disability and multilingual learner.

Other recognitions include Apple Distinguished Educator (2009) and Google Certified Innovator (2014). He has published three books on accessibility, mobile learning, and UDL: Mobile Learning for All (Corwin Press), Dive into UDL (ISTE) and Learning on the Go (CAST Publishing). He currently serves as a Transition and Workplace Accessibility strand advisor for the Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA).

In addition to his work in educational technology, Luis is an avid photographer whose work has been featured on Better Photography magazine, Business Insider, the New York Times Bits Blog and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Contact Information

lperez@cast.org

@eyeonaxs

Education

Ph. D., Special Education, University of South Florida
M. Ed., Instructional Technology, University of South Florida
B.A., Political Science, Haverford College

My Inspiration

Turn to the light. Light is important for me both as a photographer and as someone who is committed to social justice, which starts with finding the light in others. I was fortunate to have a number of mentors who supported me in making the difficult transition to new cultures when I first arrived in the U.S. from the Dominican Republic and later when I left home at a young age to attend boarding school. Without these educators, I would not be where I am today. They were my light and I hope to be the same for those I serve. Luis was selected as one of the first educators in the U.S. to go through the TED Ed Educator Talks program. His submitted talk at the end of the program was chosen for presentation at the 2018 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference. A version of the talk was then delivered at the TED studios in New York and is available as an exemplar on the TED Ed website.”