Members

We are working closely with community groups, language experts, and design and communication scholars.

Director

Alison Cardinal, Ph.D.

Alison Cardinal is an Assistant Professor in Writing Studies at the University of Washington Tacoma. Her scholarly and community work threads together literacy studies, sociolinguistics, and user-centered design to work towards social justice for marginalized multilingual communities. Her work developing participatory approaches to research and community work has appeared in Computers and Composition, Communication Design Quarterly, conference proceedings, and edited collections. She is currently working on a book manuscript with Emma Rose titled Participatory Approaches to UX Design. This book provides technical communication scholars and students an examination of the overlap between participatory design and user experience design. We argue that refocusing on participatory approaches to UX helps develop products and services that are designed to meet the needs of target audiences in a meaningful and socially just way.

Members

Perla Gamboa, M.A., C.D.P.

Perla Gamboa currently serves as Outreach and Community Partnerships Manager for the Working Families Tax Credit program at the Washington State Department of Revenue. She collaborates with government agencies and community organizations to develop standard practices and policies related to access to information and services, especially for communities that experience barriers to accessing critical information due to language, disability status, poverty, homelessness, and other factors. Through this work, she advocates for representation and meaningful connection with community-based and grassroots organizations that are already doing the work and showing the way. Through her former teaching appointment at Pacific Lutheran University and as a Commissioner for the Commission on Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, Perla has worked to advance language justice for immigrant communities that call the City of Tacoma their home.

Laura Gonzales, Ph.D.

Laura Gonzales is an assistant professor of digital writing and cultural rhetorics in the department of English at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on the intersections of language diversity, community engagement, and technology design.