George and Mary Hood Award

While her name may not be recognized in every household, Dr. Judith M. Dixon is a celebrity to thousands of literacy lovers who read and write braille.  

For over forty years, her name and her work have been familiar to all patrons of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS), a division of the Library of Congress. For 41 years, she served as consumer relations officer for NLS and, although retired, continues to work for NLS part-time, remaining at the forefront of developments impacting braille and access technology.  

Her passion for braille literacy and information access has touched blind people everywhere. In 1999, NLS launched Web-Braille, a ground-breaking project enabling braille-reading patrons to download books and magazines to braille-aware devices, for immediate electronic access. Judy Dixon designed and inaugurated that innovative effort and continued to manage it for the next decade.  

Dr. Dixon served as Chair of the Braille Authority of north America from 2007 through 2011 and Secretary of the International Council on English Braille (ICEB) from 2008 to 2016 and, in 2020, was elected president of that organization.  

She has published numerous articles and books, many of them by the National Braille Press in Boston. Her work often highlights ways in which technology can enrich life for blind and low vision people in areas ranging from photography and document creation to gaming and travel.  

She has been honored over the decades for both her work and her status as a role model by such organizations as the American Library Association and the American Council of the Blind. In 2022, the American Foundation for the Blind awarded her the Migel Medal, deemed the highest honor in the blindness field.  

Judy earned a B.A. from Stetson University, DeLand, Fla., in 1974, and her M.A. and PhD from Adelphi University in New York in 1976 and 1980 respectively.  

When she is not grooming her German shepherd guide dog or developing plans for the next international ski week for blind participants, she is probably in her kitchen experimenting with new recipes. She lives in Arlington, Virginia, with her husband and their two guide dogs.