Oce Harrison

Project Director
DBTAC-New England ADA Center
617-695-1225, x227
oharrison@HumanCenteredDesign.org

Oce Harrison, Ed.D. Project Director began her work thirty years ago on the Governor’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities in Rhode Island. Since then, she has worked as a community organizer, researcher and educator. Dr. Harrison has worked with organizations such as Mass General Hospital’s Burn Unit; Perkins School for the Blind, Casa Esperanza and the Institute for Community Inclusion at Children’s Hospital.

Before passage of the ADA, she was a peer counselor at the Boston Self Help Center, under the direction of Irv Zola. In the 1980’s, and at Perkins, she helped integrate adults with severe disabilities into community education and recreation activities throughout greater Boston. Known for her “initiation skills”, Dr. Harrison began a Department of Therapeutic Recreation for newly disabled adults at Salem hospital. This department focused on strengthening supports and resources for newly disabled transitioning from hospital to community. This department is going strong today. Working with Hispanic organizations in Roxbury, MA., she has assisted in training staff to write and implement ADA policy and procedures.

Dr. Harrison is currently a part-time professor at Bridgewater State College’s Psychology Department where she teaches a popular course on disability studies.

She has directed the DBTAC-New England ADA since 2001. Before coming to the Center, she was a consultant on the first IHDC DBTAC specifically on employment/Title I issues. She earned her doctorate at Boston University's School of Education in 1994.