Elise Roy

Elise Roy is a deaf human-centered designer, former disability rights lawyer, and speaker who works at the intersection of inclusive design and social advocacy. Deaf from the age of 10, Roy has consistently adapted her environment and its tools to meet her needs. After experiencing profound hearing loss, Roy became a Division I athlete in both soccer and lacrosse and is among a small group of deaf attorneys in the United States. At Brown University, she was recognized as one of the nation's top soccer goalkeepers.

Roy's legal career focused on human rights advocacy on a global scale. She received the Georgetown University Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship and began working for the United Nations as a human rights advocate, traveling internationally to advance disability rights. While still in law school, Roy contributed to the International Disability Rights Treaty at the United Nations, moving from observer to leader of the article on culture, sport, recreation, and leisure. The treaty, the first human rights treaty at the United Nations to be passed in the 21st century, was ratified with more than 155 countries becoming signatories. After the treaty was signed, Roy traveled extensively to support its implementation in regions including Southeast Asia, the Gulf, and Africa.

Roy's experiences as a deaf person in a world not designed for her led her to focus on design. She studied human-centered design in the Social Design program at Maryland Institute College of Art, completing a master's degree with a thesis investigating barriers for individuals with hearing loss in fabrication technology and design. Roy founded Elise Roy & Associates, a social enterprise that helps organizations analyze problems from the perspective of people with disabilities, based on the principle that designing for extremes produces better solutions than designing for the norm. Clients include the National Science Foundation and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Roy is active in the disruptive innovation movement and is a prominent voice in the inclusive design field. Her TEDx talk, "When We Design for Disability, We All Benefit," has received more than 1.3 million views. Roy promotes design thinking as essential to social change and advocates for applying social impact and human-centered design research to international aid and development. She has delivered talks for organizations such as Microsoft, NASA, the United Nations, Amazon, FedEx, Google I/O, and the World Bank, and has spoken at the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. Roy's work encourages audiences and organizations to view disability as a valuable perspective for innovation in design and accessibility.