Maysoon Zayid gave the most-watched TED Talk of 2014, walked in New York Fashion Week, headlined the Arabs Gone Wild Comedy Tour and The Muslims are Coming Tour, and even has a comedy show in development that’s loosely based on her life.

Zayid not only did all these things, she did them while experiencing cerebral palsy.

Now she’ll be adding one more thing: being the 2017 UO Disability Awareness Speaker at the UO Accessible Education Center's annual disability awareness event.

“This year we intentionally wanted to invite a speaker that could speak to the intersection of disability with other minority experiences,” said Veronica Vold, who was one of the event’s organizers. “We wanted to show how disability cuts across multiple marginalized experiences, and create a space for the university community to come around that.”

Zayid will speak Friday, June 2, at 6 p.m. in Room 156, Straub Hall. Admission is free, and snacks and light refreshments will be served at 5 p.m.

Zayid’s comedy focuses on the Arab-American experience in general and particularly on being an Arab-American woman with cerebral palsy.

“If you watch her TED Talk, she speaks specifically to what it was like growing up in New Jersey as a woman with those experiences,” Vold said. “In large part, her perspective is shaped by irony and humor surrounding those multiple identities.”

The talk is co-sponsored by the UO AccessAbility Student Union, UO Academic Affairs, the UO College of Education, ASUO Women’s Center, the UO Arab Student Union, the University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities and the UO Department of Theatre Arts.

Speakers in the past have included Jonathan Mooney, an advocate for the learning disability community, and Eli Clare, a scholar who spoke on the intersection of environment, disability and the transgender community.

For more information about the lecture, email Vold at vold@uoregon.edu.

The Accessible Education Center works with more than 1,000 students on campus who experience disabilities ranging from learning disabilities like ADHD or dyslexia to physical mobility challenges to mental health concerns. It provides accommodations so students with disabilities have an equal opportunity to succeed in class.

It also works to create communities, such as the Social Connectedness Group or the ADHD Group. To access the center’s services, make an appointment with an advisor on their website.