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At ASSETS 2026 in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, October 25–28. Open to UX research, accessibility engineer, and technical support engineer roles in the Pacific Northwest or remote.

Ryan Critchlow

UX researcher focused on accessibility

I plan and run research with the people a technology is for, using participatory design, semi-structured interviews, and thematic analysis. I co-authored a peer-reviewed paper at ASSETS 2026 and hold an M.S. in Computer Science. Before graduate school, I spent three years as an L4 support analyst on enterprise warehouse-management accounts at Körber.

Get in touch Résumé (PDF)

About

I've been building things for people my whole life, technical or otherwise. My father is a carpenter, so I grew up on job sites learning to build things that last and that suit the style and age of the homes they go into. I carried the problem-solving I learned there into my work as a technical support analyst at Körber Supply Chain, where I troubleshot SQL Server issues, supported customer go-lives, and administered warehouse management systems. I wanted to build the systems, not just support them, so I went back to Western Washington University for an M.S. in Computer Science. I've been a bartender and a carpenter along the way, and I'm working as a journeyman carpenter now.

My graduate work in the KIND Lab gave me experience designing ethical research studies with human participants. I led a project to build a Unity-based learning tool that helps neurodivergent children practice and learn language skills, using Claude to rapidly prototype it. I made the game's art myself. I scoped an IRB-approved study, designing the survey instruments, the analysis methods, and the game itself based on practitioner feedback. Before launching that study, I shifted to a pilot study with four families to refine the game's design with the children who would use it. The language assessment is left to a future team.

When I'm not working, you'll find me on a trail with Georgia, my chocolate lab, training for my next half marathon, or behind a bar making cocktails. I'm into road biking and reading, and I like being outside as much as I can, though sometimes I spend a little too long playing Stardew Valley, Age of Empires II, or Legend of Zelda.

Education

  • Master of Science in Computer Science

    Western Washington University

    Awarded June 2026

    • Human-Computer Interaction, accessible educational technology, participatory design
    • Advisor: Dr. Yasmine Elglaly

  • Bachelor of Arts in Management of Information Systems

    Western Washington University

    Awarded June 2020

    • Minor in Data Analytics

Publications

Peer-Reviewed

Ableism Unchecked: A Literature Review of Disability Misconceptions in Computing Education

Yasmine N. Elglaly, Ryan Critchlow, Kristen Shinohara, and Catherine M. Baker

To appear in Proceedings of the 28th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2026), Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, October 2026

Nominated for the Social Impact Award

Little work has examined how accessibility education affects students' assumptions about disability, or the ableist framings that can coexist with reported empathy and knowledge gains. In the first of two studies, many of 53 students' reflections from a Computer Systems course activity on assistive technology showed knowledge gains and critical engagement, but a considerable portion also contained unsubstantiated claims about assistive technology, deficit-based language, and erasure of disabled people's agency. The second, a review of 35 accessibility education papers reporting attitudinal outcomes, identified six ableist categories, such as exclusion of disabled participants and normalization of inaccessibility, in intervention designs, evaluation instruments, study framing, and reported student data. The paper recommends explicitly teaching disability bias, designing evaluation instruments that detect disability misconceptions, and adopting disability-centric, reflexive research practices.

My contribution: Coded all 35 papers in the review corpus against a codebook the research team had developed iteratively, and helped identify six recurring patterns of ableism. A second researcher reviewed a subset for consistency. This is my first conference presentation.

Supported by the National Science Foundation under Award Nos. 2121549, 2121606, 2121428, 2439816, 2439817, and 2439818.

In Preparation

A Participatory Evaluation Study of Language Learning Tools with Neurodivergent Children

Anonymous authors

In preparation for a 2027 ACM conference

My contribution: First author. I planned the build, ran recruitment, designed the instruments, ran the in-home sessions, and coded the analysis. Findings are held until publication.

A Study of Motivation in Alt Text Authoring

Anonymous authors

In preparation for a 2027 ACM conference

My contribution: I joined after the original authors had graduated. I revised the discussion section and worked with the faculty advisor to bring the manuscript to submission readiness.

Experience

  • Journeyman Carpenter

    Atlas Woodworks

    January 2026 – Present·Bellingham, WA

    Restoration, custom interior and exterior millwork, and casework installation for a worker-owned shop in Whatcom County. Started part time while finishing my M.S. and moved to full time in June 2026.

    • Work independently in the field, making design decisions on site to fit 100-year-old homes and combining traditional building practices with modern ones, especially for waterproofing
    • Moving into material takeoffs for millwork that the shop designs and then installs in the field: reading drawings, quantifying materials, and scoping jobs
    • Took over the shop's Squarespace site, handling content and structure updates

  • Graduate Researcher

    Western Washington University — KIND Lab

    Winter 2025 – June 2026·Bellingham, WA

    Designed and ran a participatory user study with neurodivergent children and their families: literature review, survey instruments, assessment methodology, and data collection plans.

    • Conducted an in-home participatory evaluation with neurodivergent children and their families, using semi-structured caregiver interviews and child-facing visual surveys
    • Applied Braun and Clarke's inductive thematic coding to caregiver interview transcripts across three coding rounds; separately coded video recordings for emotional engagement cues
    • Mentored undergraduate researchers in IRB protocols, Unity development, and participatory design methods, and re-sequenced the study to absorb a quarter-long recruiting delay

  • Graduate Teaching Assistant

    Western Washington University

    2024 – 2025·Bellingham, WA

    Supported 30+ students per quarter across DATA 311 (Fundamentals of Data Science), CSCI 102 (Computer Mediated Communications), and CSCI 345 (Object-Oriented Design).

  • Support Analyst L4

    Körber Supply Chain (now Infios)

    2020 – 2023·Bellingham, WA

    Primary technical point of contact for four enterprise warehouse-management accounts, double the team average of two.

    • Isolated faults across system boundaries, using WMS data to establish whether an issue originated in the warehouse system, the customer's order management system, Dynamics 365, or their network; resolved issues directly and escalated those that needed cloud or database administration expertise to the responsible team, with the evidence behind them
    • Translated stakeholder requests into bug fixes, platform and web page enhancements, and custom SQL reporting, with 46% more stable releases than the department average; resolved deadlocks on high-traffic production systems
    • Served as on-site technical lead at two system go-lives, and co-led a 30/60/90 onboarding framework that cut new-hire ramp time by 50%

    See how the work flowed: try the WMS simulator

  • Bartender

    Redlight

    2023 – 2025·Bellingham, WA

    Crafted high-end cocktails in a downtown bar, working 30+ hours a week to pay my way through graduate school.

    • Part of the core team that grew Redlight into a high-volume venue and moved it to a larger location, as Friday sales went from $3,500 to $11,000

  • Bartender

    Aslan Brewing Company

    March 2018 – March 2020·Bellingham, WA

    Worked through my undergraduate degree, starting as support staff and moving up to serving and bartending.

    • Helped the brewery through one of its busiest summers up to that point
    • Received the Outstanding Support Staff award for covering more shifts than most of the team and for dedication to customer service

  • Carpenter

    Bespoke Construction

    2015 – 2017·Bellingham, WA

    Custom residential construction and finish carpentry.

    • Led a three-person crew across seven projects, assigning tasks by skill level to keep job sites running efficiently

Skills

  • Research methods

    • Participatory evaluation
    • Semi-structured interviews
    • Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke)
    • Survey & instrument design
    • Video coding
    • Systematic literature coding
    • IRB protocols
    • WCAG 2.2

    From KIND Lab and ASSETS 2026

  • Troubleshooting & support

    • Fault isolation across systems
    • Escalation with evidence
    • SQL performance tuning
    • Deadlock resolution
    • Go-live support
    • Knowledge base writing
    • Onboarding & training

    From Körber

  • Process & stakeholders

    • Requirements gathering
    • Stakeholder management
    • Scope & change control
    • Prioritization & tradeoffs
    • Material takeoffs & scoping

    From Körber and Atlas Woodworks

  • Data & tools

    • T-SQL
    • MySQL
    • Python
    • Power BI
    • Tableau
    • C#
    • Java
    • JavaScript
    • Unity
    • Svelte
    • Git

    From Körber, KIND Lab and M.S.