Board of Trustees

Jacqueline Hess
Director, Family Center on Technology and Disability,
Academy for Educational Development

Ms. Hess is responsible for administering a U.S. Department of Education-funded project, which provides assistive technology resources to a national network of more than 5,000 organizations and disability professionals. The Family Center provides two fully-searchable databases, a monthly newsletter, month-long national online discussions, an Online Summer Institute, a series of Family Information Guides to Assistive Technology, and a range of other information resources.

Previously, Ms. Hess served as the Director, National Demonstration Laboratory, responsible for administering the nation's premier site for the demonstration of, and instruction about, multimedia, online communications and related emerging technologies. The National Demonstration Laboratory (NDL) housed at the Smithsonian Institution (1988-1991), the Library of Congress (1991-1994), and the Academy for Educational Development (1994-2000), provided a forum for the identification and discussion of significant public policy issues associated with the increasing use of technology in education and training. The NDL brought together industry, government and academia to forge productive public-private relationships.

As director of the NDL, Ms. Hess contributed to the emerging field of information technology by establishing evaluative criteria for multimedia applications, amassing the country's largest publicly-accessible collection of multimedia programs and creating a facility in which people from all fields, domestic and international, could learn about interactive communications in a neutral, objective environment. In addition, she provided technical assistance to organizations pursuing technological initiatives. Such assistance included: strategic planning; identification of appropriate technologies for client needs; cost-benefit analysis; and identification of current and future market trends.

Prior to her positions at the Academy for Educational Development Ms. Hess served as:

• Vice President, Telemation Associates, Washington, D.C.
• Director of Academic Publications, Close Up Foundation, Arlington, Virginia
• Director of Research, Select Committee on Assassinations, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.
• Director of Research, Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D .C.
• Senior Legislative Assistant, Congressman Parren J. Mitchell, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

Selected Consultancies:

• Quality Enhancement Review Project Evaluation, Global Development Learning Network, World Bank, Washington, D.C.
• Strategic Planning and Senior Technical Advisor, Academy for Educational Development, Learn Link Project, Morocco and Washington, D.C.
• Technology Training, World Bank, Washington, D.C.
• Distance Learning Studies: Quality Assurance, Program Management, Professional Development, International Benchmarking, World Bank Institute, Washington, D.C.
• Feasibility Study of the Development of a Distance Learning Network, World Bank, Washington, D.C.