User:Academic Challenger

My name is Skylar. I have been totally blind since birth, and began editing Wikipedia at the age of 16 in 2003. My user name comes from the name of a high school TV game show I was on. I have been an administrator since 2004, and was very active until starting graduate school in 2009. Throughout that time, I created about 1000 articles, on subjects including American and world politics and political history, religion, literature, music, and blindness organizations/companies. I also improved the content of many other articles on those subjects. As an administrator, I was at one time among the most active New Page patrollers, speedily deleting thousands of pages which were indisputably inappropriate. I additionally reverted vandalism, and disciplined problematic users while mentoring new good contributors.

I have sporadically edited since 2009, and renewed my commitment to the free knowledge movement in 2019 when WikiBlind was founded. I and another blind administrator now seek to recruit new blind editors to Wikipedia and also improve the content of articles around blindness.

I have always exclusively used the Job Access With Speech software for editing.

I earned my BA from Saint Mary's College of California in 2009 and my Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2017. I taught college political science courses for nearly 10 years. Currently I work in the field of access technology, for the Braille Institute.

I live with my wife Theresa and son Peter in Santa Barbara, California. I enjoy playing and listening to music, having played piano since an early age, clarinet throughout middle and high school, and later singing in my Catholic church choir.

My Awards
For your many contributions on political figures world-wide, I award you this barnstar. Isomorphic For fighting vandals above and beyond the call of duty, I hereby award you this Barnstar.--FWDixon 13:19, 23 August 2005 (UTC) I, V. Molotov, hereby give you this Working Man's Barnstar for taking out the garbage in Wikipedia.



Take care, Molotov (talk)  18:58, 20 September 2005 (UTC) For fighting vandals above and beyond the call of duty, I hereby award you this Barnstar.-- Vufors 07:38, 5 February 2006 (UTC) For fighting vandals above and beyond the call of duty, I hereby award you this Barnstar.-- Arhain 08:37, 5 February 2006 (UTC) For fighting vandals above and beyond the call of duty, I hereby award you this Barnstar.-- Doobi18 07:38, 5 February 2006 (UTC) For fighting vandals above and beyond the call of duty, I hereby award you this Barnstar.-- Howdyhody 10:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC) For being self-important and conceited, I award you this barnstar.--68.4.58.77 00:22, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

 For your contributions to Wikipedia and humanity in general, you are hereby granted the coveted Random Smiley Awardby Pedia-I  Project J e s u s(Explanation and Disclaimer) Thanks for the rv on my user page, mate! 〈 RED VEЯS 〉 21:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)