Meredith Peruzzi

Meredith Peruzzi (she/they) is a deaf museum professional and accessibility activist. Her museum journey began when she worked as a young volunteer in the Baltimore City Life Museums, and progressed to a role as the director of the National Deaf Life Museum at Gallaudet University, located in Washington DC. Their doctoral research at the University of Leicester focuses on how museums can look beyond the checklist of adjustments in disability legislation, and move toward creating museums that are truly "deaf-friendly" and create a welcoming environment for d/Deaf visitors that provides an equitable experience and a space of belonging. As the founder of Echo Spark Consulting, she provides museology consulting services within the deaf community, and accessibility consulting within the museum community, on local, national, and international scales. They can work professionally in four languages and are conversational in three more. Meredith volunteers her time as the Vice President of Deaf History International, and previously spent a year in Tokyo teaching American Sign Language.

Doctoral research at UoL focuses on what it means for a museum to be "deaf-friendly," and how museums can create welcoming spaces for deaf and hard of hearing visitors where they feel a sense of belonging. Supervisors: Suzanne MacLeod, Richard Sandell.

• "Deafness and Silences in the Archives" (second author) in Cripping the Archive: Disability, History, and Power, 2025, University of Illinois Press.
• "Seeing the Deaf Visitor: Improving Accessibility Through a Critical Studies Lens" in The Museum Accessibility Spectrum: Re-imagining Access and Inclusion, eds. Jones and Eardley, 2025, Routledge.
• "Experiences with a Museum Exhibition on Deaf Women: Success and Room for Improvements" in American Annals of the Deaf vol 6 iss 1, 2022, Gallaudet University Press.
• Victorian Morality in American Society: How Victoria Woodhull Prompted the Writing of the Comstock Act of 1873, graduate thesis, 2017, George Mason University.
• Who Teaches the Teachers: History of the Normal School at Gallaudet University, undergraduate thesis, 2010, Gallaudet University.

Gallaudet University (Washington DC); Adjunct Instructor; Introduction to Deaf Studies, Visual Communication, History of Sexuality

Japanese ASL Signers Society (Tokyo); Instructor and Lecturer; American Sign Language

 

Vice President, Deaf History International (2025-2027)

• Out of Our Hands: Museum Access for Deaf Visitors - Association for Art History Conference 2026, Cambridge.
• Eyes on Shakespeare: An Accessible First Folio Exhibit - Association of Academic Museums and Galleries Conference 2017, Eugene, Oregon.
• Transforming the Narrative: Battiste, Foster, and the Status Quo - Deaf Studies Transformations Conference 2018, Washington, DC.

I enjoy conversations regarding deaf history, the history of Gallaudet University, the US space program, queer and crip theory, and Holocaust studies.

The National Deaf Life Museum highlights America's rich, deaf history (WTTG, 2023)

A national museum about – but not just for – the deaf community (Washington Post, 2022)

President Abraham Lincoln's Connection to DC's Gallaudet University (WUSA, 2021)

• BA in Deaf Studies with minor in History, Gallaudet University (with University Honors and magna cum laude)
• MA in History, George Mason University (concentrations in Public History and U.S. History)