Our team

Neil Cordell

Director of Digital Governance Risk and Assurance

Dr Tharindu Liyanagunawardena

Digital Accessibility Officer

Tharindu is passionate about technology and using technology to make the world a better place. She has almost 20 years of experience as a software engineer, educator, researcher, and educational technologist, working in both developed and developing countries. She was co-creator and lead facilitator of the Begin Programming: Build your first mobile game, the University of Reading's first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on the FutureLearn platform. Her interest in accessibility was sparked by meeting a learner with colour vision deficiency in the Begin Programming MOOC. She won the prestigious European Distance and eLearning Network’s (EDEN) Best Research Paper Award for her work, Automatic captioning software: Good enough for accessibility? A case study from built environment education.

Tharindu earned her PhD from the University of Reading and was featured in the University of Reading’s “Women in Research” exhibition as a final-year PhD student. She is a Senior Certified Member of the Association for Learning Technology (SCMALT),  Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC), and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).

Tharindu is also co-chairing Women@Reading plus allies Diversity Network with over 600 members.

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