Karen Peltz Strauss has spent the past four decades leading nationwide efforts to secure disability access to electronic communications and video programming. Strauss was lead drafter of the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 and prior landmark laws requiring access to video programming through closed captioning, video description, and accessible end-user video equipment. From 2010-2018, Strauss oversaw the implementation of these laws (and other laws requiring communications access) as Deputy Chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission. Prior to that time, Strauss was legal counsel for Gallaudet University’s National Center for Law and Deafness, the National Association of the Deaf, and consultant for various providers of accessibility services. Strauss frequently has been called upon to testify before Congress as an expert witness on accessibility legislation and to present at national and international conferences. Strauss’s 2006 book – A New Civil Right: Telecommunications Equality for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Americans – provides an in-depth look at the first forty years of telecommunications and video programming advocacy by Americans who are deaf and hard of hearing. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Strauss also holds an L.L.M from the Georgetown University Law Center and an honorary doctorate degree from Gallaudet University, the latter for her work to expand communications access. Among Strauss’s many awards are those received from the National Consumers League, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc., the National Association of the Deaf, the D.C. Mayor’s Office, and the Alliance for Public Technology.