DO-IT Staff Highlight: Lyla Crawford

Since joining DO-IT in 1997, Lyla has helped shape the organization’s work in far-reaching ways. Her contributions span programs, partnerships, research, mentoring, evaluation, and regional outreach. Her work most strongly reflects two ideas that continue to shape disability-centered higher education practices: universal design and disability justice.

Universal design asks institutions to build environments, tools, and experiences that work for the widest possible range of people from the start, rather than adding access later. Disability justice goes further by insisting that disabled people are not an afterthought in education, research, and opportunity. It centers dignity, participation, community, and the leadership of those most affected by exclusion. Lyla’s work at DO-IT embodies both principles.

Lyla has been involved in all of DO-IT’s federally funded projects, including early nationwide accessibility alliances and broadening participation efforts. Her work has helped connect local services to national efforts that expand access to education, technology, and careers for disabled people.

Lyla conducts the DO-IT Center’s internal evaluation activities and collaborates closely with an external evaluator to ensure that program results are measurable and impactful. Evaluation helps ensure quality programming, and through the lens of disability justice, evaluation becomes a way of asking whether programs are actually serving people well, whether outcomes are equitable, and whether participants are experiencing real access and belonging.

Lyla oversees the DO-IT Mentors program and various online mentoring communities, work that reflects another important disability justice principle: community is a source of power. Mentoring is not just about advice. It is about connection, recognition, and the chance to imagine a future that feels possible. For many disabled students, especially those navigating inaccessible systems or social isolation, mentoring can make a world of difference.

Through 28 years of work with DO-IT Scholars, Lyla has helped disabled high school students prepare for their transition to college. She has helped shape our Summer Study program, where students live in a campus dorm and learn about college life, academics, independence, and community. The program gives students the opportunity to build confidence, practice self-advocacy, and see themselves as college-bound scholars.

Lyla has contributed to the field as an author of many peer-reviewed articles on promising practices that help disabled youth pursue college and careers. Her scholarship shares effective strategies and provides others with models they can adapt. In this way, her writing extends DO-IT’s impact far beyond direct participants.

Lyla runs the DO-IT Center office in Spokane, Washington, helping ensure that families in eastern Washington can access DO-IT services. This matters because access is shaped not only by disability, but also by geography, transportation, infrastructure, and regional opportunity. 

While DO-IT’s impact over the past several decades has been shaped by many people, we invite you to pause and celebrate this amazing staff member. Lyla’s work towards building transformative systems reminds us that durable change is built through care, consistency, and a long-term commitment to making access real.