Eve

I remember when Ada first applied to the Accessibility Engineering team, in January 2015. At the time, she was an engineer in YouTube. She had attended some events from our inaugural Accessibility Week a few months earlier and learned about the work our team was doing. She wrote me a note saying that, after some soul searching, she decided she wanted to work at Google for as long as possible, and that she wanted to dedicate the rest of her career to helping people with neuromuscular diseases have access to technology. We met in person a few days later, and she was so clearly intelligent and passionate that I hired her on the spot. At that meeting, she taught me about Noman Clocks and said she wanted to implement them in Google’s technology. A year and a half later, she and her intern Sarah did just that!
One of our most fun team social events was we went bowling at Google’s on-campus bowling alley. Anna came too! I had bought a metal bowling ramp — an apparatus that helps wheelchair users aim and roll the bowling ball. But none of the bowling ramps were correctly sized for Ada’s electric wheelchair. So my husband Ramiro spent a whole day building a metal extender for the bowling ramp. It fit perfectly! When we got to the bowling alley, Phil demonstrated his bungee cord expertise, attaching the ramp to Ada’s chair. For the first several rounds, Ada would position herself in front of the lane, and then Anna would help by rolling the ball. But then Ada realized that she could raise her chair in order to angle the ramp and roll the ball by herself. She was very adamant that Anna no longer roll the ball for her! Ada did great; she got one of the top scores on the team. Months later, Ada told me that was one of her happiest days on the team.
 

Ada and Phil

Video:(TODO:miro insert YouTube link)
 
Ada was so happy when she learned I was pregnant. She would stop me in the hallway and ask me how I was and give me advice. She enjoyed talking about her own experience being pregnant with Anna — pregnancy was a wonderful experience for her! I remember thinking about her advice as I filled out the delivery preferences form for the hospital; my baby Oliver avoided silver nitrate on his eyes thanks to Ada’s advice. Oliver regularly had the hiccups in utero. Ada said that Anna did, too, and that Ada and Miro nicknamed her “Hiccup”! During my baby shower, Phil gave me a “children’s” book called “Go the F*ck to Sleep”. Ada smiled excitedly and said she knew it well. Perhaps it was hard to get Anna to go to sleep as a baby (Oliver is the same)!  🙂
— Eve was Ada’s boss and then her boss’ boss at the Accessibility Engineering team at Google