Dr. Amanda Kraus

Dr. Amanda Kraus serves as Chief Accessibility Officer and Assistant Vice President for Campus Life and Executive Director for Disability Resources at the University of Arizona. UArizona’s Disability Resource Center (DRC) is one of the largest in the nation and considered an international model of progressive service delivery and student programming, uniquely positioned to approach campus access systemically. Dr. Kraus is also Associate Professor of Practice in Higher Education where she teaches courses on student services and disability and uses disability studies to inform research and teaching that challenges deficit or tragedy rhetoric on disability and frame disability in the context of social justice, shaped by dynamics of power and privilege.

Dr. Kraus is Immediate Past President for the Association of Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD) Board of Directors and has had the privilege of delivering keynote addresses and facilitating workshops at institutions such as, Duke, Wake Forest, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) and the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U). Dr. Kraus also has extensive international experience and has traveled twice for consulting engagements at Singapore Management University and has been invited to Temasek Polytechnic Institute, University of Macerata, IT, was the featured speaker at l’Association Québécoise Interuniversitaire des Conseillers aux Étudiants en Situation de Handicap in Montréal, CA – the first plenary talk to be delivered in English in the organization’s twenty-year history, and was an invited speaker for the US-Japan Collaboration on Disability and Self-Advocacy in higher Education, co-sponsored by the US Embassy in Tokyo as well as well American Japanese disability organizations. Dr. Kraus was invited to join a delegation convened by the US Department of State to engage in dialogue on disability access in education and employment in Beijing, China and again in Washington, D.C., and recently spent two weeks in Nairobi, KE consulting on universal design at the United States International University of Africa.

Outside of work, Dr. Kraus was recently appointed to Southwest Airlines’ first Customer Accessibility Advisory Council to offer insights on the disability experience in air travel. She is an avid wheelchair tennis player previously served on the Board of the United States Tennis Association Southwest Section to elevate the visibility of wheelchair tennis and she currently serves on the Board of Visit Tucson to promote accessibility across the hospitality industry.

Dr. Kraus earned her MA and Ph.D. at the University of Arizona in Higher Education.