Robbie Adams serves as the Training and Development Manager at the City of Boston’s Office of Language and Communications Access (OLCA).  As such, she strives to ensure that all City of Boston departments understand how to provide accommodation services to constituents who speak a Language Other Than English (LOTE), or who identify as having a disability.  Robbie does this by overseeing a team of learning and development specialists who provide training, resources and guidance to departments to ensure accessibility of services to all constituents, regardless of their communication-related needs.

Robbie was raised in Hawai’i but came to Massachusetts for her undergraduate studies, earning a BA in Social Thought and Political Economy from University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  She also studied about the issues leading to displacement of populations through Southeast Asia through a fellowship from the East-West Center in Honolulu, and continued studying about displacement at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where she received a master's degree in Peace and Conflict Studies.  She worked as a project manager at the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights (BCRHHR) at Boston Medical Center for five years, assisting refugees and asylum seekers who are primarily survivors of torture.  Robbie's shift to public service work has amplified her interest in providing the tools necessary for constituents to access all of the services available to them in the City of Boston.