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| Byline | Expertise | Bio |
|---|---|---|
| Laine Yuhas | Disability Culture, Accessibility, Disability Rights, LGBQT, Disability, Technology | Emerson College graduate with extensive experience in digital media, esports, and geek culture, especially where it intersects with the disabled and/or queer communities. Expert in online community-building with a focus on inclusivity and accessibility. |
| Elyse Wanshel | Media, Pop Culture, Film, Television, Disability Culture, Accessibility, Disability Rights, Criticism, Feminism, LGBQT, Disability, Lifestyle | Elyse Wanshel is a reporter for HuffPost, based in New York. She previously worked as a humor/nightlife columnist for the Miami New Times and misses Cuban coffee and croquetas dearly. |
| M. Leona Godin | Books, Theatre, Poetry, Fiction, Philosophy, Disability Culture, Accessibility, History, Criticism, Disability, Service Animals, Technology | M. Leona Godin is a writer, actor, artist, and educator who is blind. She is currently working on Seeing & Not-Seeing: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness with Pantheon Books. Godin received her PhD in English Literature from NYU. Her writing has appeared in such diverse publications as PLAYBOY, O Magazine, and Catapult, where she writes a column called “A Blind Writer's Notebook.” She founded Aromatica Poetica as a venue for exploring the arts and sciences of smell and taste, an online magazine not specifically for, but welcoming to, blind readers and writers. As an actor and director, Godin wrote and produced two theatrical productions in New York City: The Star of Happiness, which is based on Helen Keller’s time performing on vaudeville (1920-24), and The Spectator & the Blind Man, set in 18th century France, which tells the history of the invention of braille. Godin has given talks and lectures on art, accessibility, technology, and blindness in venues from the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville to NYU's Tandon School of Engineering. Having grown up in San Francisco and spent many years in New York, Godin and her partner Alabaster have temporarily ensconced themselves in Denver. M. Leona Godin is a writer, actor, artist, and educator who is blind. She is currently working on Seeing & Not-Seeing: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness with Pantheon Books. Godin received her PhD in English Literature from NYU. Her writing has appeared in such diverse publications as PLAYBOY, O Magazine, and Catapult, where she writes a column called “A Blind Writer's Notebook.” She founded Aromatica Poetica as a venue for exploring the arts and sciences of smell and taste, an online magazine not specifically for, but welcoming to, blind readers and writers. As an actor and director, Godin wrote and produced two theatrical productions in New York City: The Star of Happiness, which is based on Helen Keller’s time performing on vaudeville (1920-24), and The Spectator & the Blind Man, set in 18th century France, which tells the history of the invention of braille. Godin has given talks and lectures on art, accessibility, technology, and blindness in venues from the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville to NYU's Tandon School of Engineering. Having grown up in San Francisco and spent many years in New York, Godin and her partner Alabaster have temporarily ensconced themselves in Denver. |
| Lisa Florey | Media, Accessibility, Travel | Deaf since age five, Lisa is a freelance writer and photographer based in the Ozarks. She has had articles published in equitrekking.com, matadornetwork.com, Fresh Cup, INSIDE Bella Vista and Ozarks Farm & Neighbor. Lisa also has experience as a proofreader and copy editor. Her background includes web sites, magazine and book publishing, private label food packaging and loyalty marketing materials. Lisa has also worked as a pro bono social media contributor for Watts of Love, a global solar light distribution nonprofit. Additional communication availability: Text, videoconference (sign language) |
| Gabi Serrato Marks | Sciences, Accessibility, Education, LGBQT | Gabriela Serrato Marks is a PhD candidate in Marine Geology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studies past climate change and explores caves. She is also interested in science communication and climate science. She grew up in Boston and earned her BA in Earth and Oceanographic Science at Bowdoin College in Maine. Gabriela has chronic pain and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. She writes and talks about how to make science, especially natural science fields that require fieldwork, more accessible for people with disabilities. She is proudly Mexican-American and queer. |
| Elsa Sjunneson-Henry | Media, Pop Culture, Books, Television, Theatre, Fiction, Disability Culture, Accessibility, Disability Rights, Criticism, Americans with Disabilities Act, Feminism, Religion, LGBQT, Disability, Service Animals, Travel | Four time Hugo Finalist Elsa Sjunneson-Henry is a deafblind author and editor of speculative fiction. She has had work in Fireside, Uncanny, CNN, The Boston Globe, and Tor.com, among many other venues. She also teaches frequently at the university level. She and her guide dog zoom through life on deadlines and adventures. |
| Sonya Huber | Disability Rights, Feminism, LGBQT, Disability | I’m the author of five books, including three books of creative nonfiction: Opa Nobody, Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir, and Pain Woman Takes Your Keys: Essays from a Nervous System. My other books include a textbook, The Backwards Research Guide for Writers: Using Your Life for Reflection, Connection, and Inspiration and The Evolution of Hillary Rodham Clinton. I’m a disabled writer with rheumatoid disease and a longtime activist who teaches at Fairfield University. My work has been published in literary journals and magazines including The New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, Fourth Genre, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Washington Post Magazine. My work won the 2012 Terrain.org Award in Nonfiction and is included in True Stories, Well Told: From the First Twenty Years of Creative Nonfiction; other essays have been named Notable in the Best American Essays 2014 and 2015. I also published an e-book on direct care work with SheBooks, Two Eyes are Never Enough: A Minimum-Wage Memoir. |
| Jamie Hale | Medicine, Theatre, Poetry, Politics, Disability Culture, Accessibility, Disability Rights, Criticism, Food, Feminism, LGBQT, Disability, Sexuality, Technology, Travel | I am a poet, journalist and essayist based in London, UK, with work exploring the embodied experiences of illness and disability, as well as political themes arising from those interests. As a queer trans person, a non-ambulatory wheelchair user, and someone experiencing progressive disability, neurodivergence and mental illness, I have a broad spectrum of personal experience. I have had journalism published by the Guardian, the Wellcome Collection, and Unite Magazine, and have been interviewed for numerous publications, including Disability Arts Online, and the Stage. I have written extensively on public transport, assisted suicide, social care, and the 'disabled experience', as well as other themes. I am writing a guide to social care with Muscular Dystrophy UK, and have completed a guide for adjusting to disability, which will be available free in late 2019. I write extensively on health and social care, adaptive technology, product reviews, and studenthood for my own website. I have written poetry for publications including the Rialto, Malady Mag, and Poetry Quarterly, and have performed it in venues including the Barbican Centre, the Tate Modern, and the Lyric Theatre. I have a solo poetry show, NOT DYING, and theatrical curatorial experience. I won the London Writers' Awards for Poetry 2018, and was shortlisted for the Jerwood Compton Fellowships 2019. I also have media experience, speaking to Sky News on disabled peoples' opposition to assisted suicide, amongst other appearances, and am an experienced public speaker, speaking at the Barbican Centre, the Science Gallery, and Platform Southwark. |
| Angel Powell | Media, Pop Culture, Fiction, Music, Disability Culture, Accessibility, Disability Rights, Education, Americans with Disabilities Act, Food, Race, Religion, LGBQT, Disability, Relationships, Sexuality, Technology, Lifestyle | Angel Powell is a writer and graphic artist, living in WNY, she writes about disability and all its intersections. |
| Day Al-Mohamed | Media, Pop Culture, Law, Books, Film, Television, Fiction, Politics, Disability Culture, Accessibility, Disability Rights, Race, LGBQT, Disability, Service Animals, Travel | Day Al-Mohamed is multi-skilled policy executive with more than fifteen years of experience working directly with public and private industry, as well as with policymakers in Washington, DC. She currently serves as a Supervisory Analyst with the U.S. Department of Labor. Ms. Al-Mohamed’s policy portfolio at the Department has included the design and implementation of the Add Us In initiative to identify and develop strategies to increase employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities by working with small business associations in underserved and historically excluded communities. Prior to that, Ms. Al-Mohamed worked as a Senior Legislative and Federal Affairs Officer with the American Psychological Association (APA), managing their legislative and regulatory activities relating to Healthcare, Immigration, and International Development. She has also served as Director of Advocacy and Governmental Affairs for the American Council of the Blind. Ms. Al-Mohamed provided technical assistance and support to both consumers and various advisory committees and governing bodies. Before her legislative work in Washington DC, Ms. Al-Mohamed’s career has included work in advocacy and legislative initiatives in a wide variety of roles. She worked on the planning committee for the Civil Rights Group of the Cambio de Colores conference, the largest conference that directly addresses the various issues faced by Latino immigrants to the Midwest. In addition, she served as a representative of the ISC-ICC to the Preparatory Commission of the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the United Nations. Outside of her policy work, Ms. Al-Mohamed is the Founding Director of the Lead On Network and author of the Young Adult novel Baba Ali and the Clockwork Djinn: A Steampunk Faerie Tale. She is a host on Idobi Radio’s Geek Girl Riot and, in addition to speculative fiction, also writes comics and film scripts. Her current focus is a speculative fiction anthology highlighting the experiences of immigrants and refugees, and on a Civil War documentary on the Invalid Corps and the Battle of Fort Stevens about group of soldiers with disabilities who saved President Lincoln from a surprise Confederate raid. She is an active member of Women in Film and Video, a 2015 Docs in Progress Fellow, and a graduate of the VONA/Voices Writing Workshop. Her short story, “The Lesser Evil” was nominated for the WSFA Small Press Award for Best Short Fiction of 2015. However, she is most proud of being invited to teach a workshop on storytelling: "Strikingly Beautiful: A Celebration of Women & Girls with Disabilities" at the White House in February 2016. She presents often on the representation of and importance of disability in media, most recently for the National Bar Association, at New York Comic Con, and at SXSW. Ms. Al-Mohamed holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work. Ms. Al-Mohamed proudly serves as Public Affairs Staff Officer (FSO-PA) in the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary. Ms. Al-Mohamed lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with her wife, N.R.Brown. You can find Day at her website and on Twitter @DayAlMohamed |