2026 Trailblazers Announced: Ritesh K. and Piper H.

Every year, the DO‑IT Center highlights our community members who are forging new pathways to benefit others. Through their work and accomplishments, our DO-IT Trailblazers are increasing the potential of people with disabilities to succeed in college, careers, and community life, as well as changing the way the world views disability, access, and inclusion. Congratulations to this year’s honorees!

Ritesh Kanchi

Ritesh Kanchi, an AccessComputing Team Member, for his work in improving and promoting accessibility practice in computing education. As an undergraduate at the University of Washington, Ritesh worked to improve accessibility at scale in introductory computing courses. Funded by AccessComputing, he worked with Allen School Teaching Faculty Miya Natsuhara and Matt Wang. Since introductory computing is a prominent gateway into the field, these courses are critical spaces to build proactive accessibility capacity for students. Having served as a teaching assistant (TA) in these courses himself, Ritesh understood accessibility not as an abstract or legal mandate but as part of the everyday labor of teaching—supporting fellow TAs in that work by giving them the practices and tools to make their courses accessible.

At its core, accessibility is inseparable from good design, and Ritesh believes the most durable accessibility comes from designing intentional systems from the outset. As a computer science PhD student at Harvard, he carries this principle forward: developing intelligent, adaptive user interfaces that respond to a person's abilities and context, so that computing augments ability rather than replacing it. Alongside this research, he works with stakeholders across Harvard to help build an inclusive-pedagogy community of practice and teach accessibility as a design discipline, in and out of the classroom.

Piper Hawley

Piper Hawley, a 2020 Neuroscience for Neurodiverse Learners (NNL) Scholar, for their work increasing awareness and access to secondary and higher education for teens with disabilities. After completing NNL, Piper attended Western Washington University, where they served as a peer advisor for the Institute for Critical Disability Studies. They created and led faculty workshops on topics related to disability, such as neurodiversity and inclusion in the classroom. Piper also served as the vice president of Western’s adaptive sports club. 

In the summers of 2024 and 2025, Piper worked as a program assistant for both DO-IT Summer Study and NNL. In this role and beyond, Piper helped teens with disabilities navigate the transition from high school to college. In June 2025, Piper graduated with a BS in behavioral neuroscience, with minors in critical disability studies and honors interdisciplinary studies. 

Piper now works as a teaching assistant at the Overlake Specialty School, assisting high school students with behavioral challenges. They will be attending Seattle University’s Master’s in Counseling program starting this fall. Piper plans on becoming a clinical neuropsychologist, with the goal of supporting individuals who have not been able to access a diagnosis due to inequitable systems.