Karen Peltz Strauss is currently Deputy Chief of the Consumer Information Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission where she oversees the Commission’s disability and consumer access programs and policies. Among her many responsibilities, Ms. Peltz Strauss assists in overseeing the FCC’s Consumer Education Office, an office dedicated to enhancing outreach and education to consumers of our nation’s telecommunications products and services, and the Commission’s Disabilities Rights Office, which works to ensure that our nation’s mandates for telecommunications access are fully implemented.  Prior to her arrival at the Commission in November of 1999, Ms. Peltz Strauss spent nearly two decades as one of the country's foremost advocates on matters concerning telecommunications access by individuals with disabilities.  First as Supervising Attorney at Gallaudet University's National Center for Law and Deafness and then as both Legal Counsel for Telecommunications Policy for the National Association of the Deaf and Telecommunications Legislative Consultant for the Council of Organizational Representatives on National Issues Concerning People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, Ms. Peltz Strauss co-authored and spearheaded efforts to achieve passage of several pieces of legislation requiring access to telecommunications and television by people with disabilities.  These included Sections 255 and 305 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (requiring telecommunications access and television captioning) , Title IV of the Americans with Disabilities Act (mandating relay services), and the Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 (mandating caption decoders in most television sets).  Ms. Peltz Strauss has written extensive articles on telecommunications access, has testified before the U.S. Congress as an expert witness, and has served out numerous federal advisory appointments, including a Presidential appointment to the Federal Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Broadcasters.

Ms. Peltz Strauss received her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and her L.L.M. from the Georgetown University Law Center.

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