Ann Paradiso
Principal Research Designer
About
Ann Paradiso (she/her) is a Principal Research Designer the Enable Group at Microsoft Research. A firm believer in purpose-driven innovation, she believes in the power of combining community, compassion, and commitment to a higher purpose with creative combinations of technology and human-centered design to help break down the barriers erected by disease and disability.
She is founder and director of the Microsoft Hands Free Music Project and co-founder of the Expressive Pixels Platform, two projects created to help restore creative and expressive channels that have been rendered inaccessible due to disability-related constraints.
From 2014-2020, she led a participatory design program with Microsoft and the ALS/MND Community, where she and her colleagues collaborated extensively with patients, caregivers, clinicians, families, service organizations, academia, and industry on a number of projects aimed at improving quality of life for people living with severe speech and mobility constraints.
Ann is passionate about overcoming the stigmas associated with invisible disabilities, neurodivergence, and mental health. She was a founding board member of the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) Washington Chapter, and has experience designing evidence-based mobile interventions for mental health disabilities.
Microsoft Podcast
Enabling design with Ann Paradiso
Episode 70, April 3, 2019 - On today’s podcast, Ann tells us all about life in the extreme constraint design lane, explains what a PALS is, and tells us some incredibly entertaining stories about how the eye tracking technology behind the Eye Controlled Wheelchair and the Hands-Free Music Project has made its way from Microsoft’s campus to some surprising events around the country, including South by Southwest and Mardi Gras.