Networking Reception

Welcome & Event Overview

Keynote – Alison Barkoff, Harold and Jane Hirsh Associate Professor of Health Law and Policy, George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health

Award Presentation

Acceptance Remarks

Honoree Toast

Closing Remarks

Mix & Mingle

Anne Blackfield was appointed Deputy Secretary of the Maryland Department of Disabilities (MDOD) on July 31, 2024 by Governor Wes Moore. In her role as Deputy Secretary, Ms. Blackfield oversees the department’s policy and legislative work. Ms. Blackfield worked at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) where she worked on policies and regulations affecting people who receive long-term services and supports from Medicaid. Prior to her federal service, Ms. Blackfield was the Director of Interagency Affairs at MDOD, leading the department’s legislative and interagency coordination efforts. She also served as the Executive Director of the Maryland Assistive Technology Program, also located in MDOD. Ms. Blackfield graduated cum laude from the University of Maryland School of Law and has a Master of Arts and Religion from Yale Divinity School. She received her BA degree from Yale University. She lives in Baltimore.

Theo W. Braddy has advocated on behalf of people with disabilities for over 40 years. At the age of 15, he became a person with a disability due to a high school football accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. In 1988, Braddy was hired as CEO of the Center for Independent Living of Central Pennsylvania, where he served for over 30 years. As CEO, Braddy created an independent living center that became a strong and growing voice for people with disabilities, and started the Living Well with a Disability Initiative. He currently serves as Executive Director of the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL). He has taught at Temple University and Millersville University as an Adjunct Professor. Two different Governors have appointed Braddy as a Commissioner for the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and to serve on the Pennsylvania Statewide Independent Living Council. In 2021, Governor Wolf appointed him to serve on the State Board of Vocational Rehabilitation. In 2022, Braddy was selected by Senator Robert Casey, Jr., as one of four Black leaders in Pennsylvania who has demonstrated power and persistency in overcoming challenges and creating meaningful change in the State, and his contribution was acknowledged on the Senate Floor at a Congressional Hearing. He graduated from Temple University with his MSW in 1988 after receiving his BSW from Edinboro University.

Naomi Brickel is the new Project Director for Supported Decision-Making New York (SDMNY), leading the effort to develop an infrastructure for supported decision-making (SDM) facilitation services and agreements as a legally recognizable alternative to guardianship, and scale up this human rights initiative on behalf of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism across the state. She previously worked at Westchester Institute for Human Development (WIHD), where she started and spent her career, up until this role, working with young adults to promote their self-determination and empowerment, assisting families in the practical and emotional aspects of navigating disability service systems across the lifespan, and building capacity with school districts and agency professionals for more inclusive communities through community based program development. She’s played an active role in New York State policy, serving on NYSED’s and ACCES-VR’s state advisory councils and educating and informing legislators and policy makers in all of these areas. Naomi graduated from the University of Scranton and received her Master’s degree in Special Education and Secondary Transition from the University of Kansas. She is the mother of six children who all attended the New Rochelle Public Schools where she lives and previously served on the Board of Education.

Michael J. Brogioli serves as the Executive Director of TASH. Michael joined TASH in October 2020 and brings over twenty five years of senior management experience in the nonprofit sector including past leadership positions as executive director of the Autism Coalition for Research and Education, the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities (NACDD) and RESNA. Brogioli also has experience working on Capitol Hill where he served as a Jacob Javits Fellow and legislative assistant on health care issues to U.S. Senator Tom Daschle. Prior to joining TASH, Michael worked on an interim basis as a Senior Advisor to Eurasia Programs for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, where he advised programs involving civil society organizations including those that advocate for people with disabilities. Brogioli earned a Master of Public Policy from Duke University and a BA in Government and International Relations from the University of Notre Dame. He resides in Mount Rainier, Maryland.

Judith A Gran, Esq. practiced law at the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia from 1984 to 2009. She served as Director of Disability Projects from 1998 to 2009. She has conducted class action litigation to obtain community services for institutionalized persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Montana, California, Illinois and Tennessee. Her work as counsel for the Arc of Pennsylvania and the plaintiff class during the implementation phase of the consent decree in Halderman v. Pennhurst from 1986 through 1998 led to significant improvements in community service systems in Philadelphia and other counties. Ms. Gran represents special education students in administrative and judicial proceedings in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other states, including the class action suit Gaskin v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a case brought to enforce the least restrictive environment mandate of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that is now in the implementation phase. She is a currently a partner at Reisman Carolla Gran & Zuba LLP.

Nicole Jorwic is an experienced policy professional supporting advancements in disability, aging and direct care workforce policy and mobilization. Nicole is the Chief Program Officer for Caring Across Generations. Prior to her current roles, Nicole was Senior Director of Public Policy and Senior Executive Officer of State Advocacy at The Arc of the United States. Before coming to DC to work on Federal Advocacy, Nicole served as Senior Policy Advisor and Manager of the Employment First Initiative in Illinois. Prior to that appointment, Nicole was the CEO/President of the Institute on Public Policy for People with Disabilities. Nicole is also an accomplished special education attorney.

Nicole leads and supports many coalitions to advance the priorities of the care movement, including strengthening and expanding access to Medicaid, home and community-based care and better pay for direct care workers. Nicole is a member of the Presidents Committee on People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Nicole is most importantly a sibling to her brother Chris who is 35 and has autism, a former direct care worker, and on the care team for her three grandparents in their 90s.

Janet E. Lord has spent her career as an international human rights lawyer working globally to advance the rights of persons with disabilities. A lead drafter of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, she has shaped law reform in dozens of countries to advance disability rights, has taught and engaged in research on human rights and disability, and has provided counsel on inclusive development for the World Bank, the United Nations, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Department of State of the United States and numerous other bilateral and multilateral donors. She holds degrees from Kenyon College, the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), and the George Washington University Law School. In 2022, she was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws by Kenyon College for her work in advancing international disability rights and disability inclusive development. She is currently serving as a senior fellow with the Harvard Law School Project on Disability and Executive Director of the Center for International and Comparative Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law. She is also Vice President on the Board of the US International Council on Disabilities.

John Poulos is a Policy Analyst at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. He received a Master of Science in Public Health in Health Policy from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Prior to ASAN, he assessed community-based behavioral health services in Maryland and provided expertise on the epidemiology, prevalence, and societal cost of problem gambling to the North Carolina state legislature. He is a former chapter president of European Horizons, a student-run policy incubator focusing on transatlantic affairs. John specializes in public health advocacy and health disparities analysis and his professional interests include access to housing and healthcare services, disability rights in education, and the effects of disinformation on policy and public opinion. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

Melanie Reeves Miller has over 30 years of experience as a disabilities expert, human services professional, administrator, case manager, and direct support provider. Miller has been involved in implementation and monitoring of class action litigation ensuring the rights of people with disabilities to leave institutions and congregate, long-term care settings for meaningful lives in the most integrated settings possible. In addition to monitoring, Miller’s experience includes developing supports and services designed to promote development of meaningful relationships, attainment of productive work, retirement and volunteer opportunities, participation in community life, personal decision-making, and becoming valued and contributing members of the community.

Priscila Rodríguez is the Director of Advocacy and the Project Director for the Women’s Health Justice Initiative at Disability Rights International. She has led DRI’s legal work in the Americas before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and has filed ground breaking cases on the rights of children and adults with disabilities in the region. She has also led human rights investigations in Mexico, Guatemala and Kenya and has published several human rights reports. In 2015 she designed one of the first human rights investigations to employ women with psychosocial disabilities as researchers to document the sterilization and denial of sexual and reproductive rights of women and girls.

She previously served as a Human Rights Officer and Mental Health Specialist for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2017), an expert on sexual and reproductive rights and disability for the United Nations Population Fund (2015) and a Faculty Member of the International Disability Law Summer School at the National University of Ireland (2015). She earned an LL.M cum laude in International Law of Human Rights and Criminal Justice (2011) at the Utrecht University School of Law.

Hezzy Smith, Esq. is a trilingual attorney, a proud sibling, and Director of Advocacy Initiatives. He’s responsible for much of HPOD’s self-advocacy programming. He has worked closely with self-advocacy and disabled peoples’ organizations both in the United States and abroad to advocate, research, and produce awareness-raising materials. His Spanish, English, and Bangla language materials have shaped disability rights strategic litigation and important decisions by national and regional courts, and his disability rights scholarship has appeared in collections published by Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press, as well as both U.S. and international law reviews.

Erin Prangley, J.D. serves as Director of Public Policy at the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities (NACDD), representing the 56 state and territorial Councils on Developmental Disabilities across the U.S. With over 25 years of experience in public policy, law, and civil rights, she advocates for federal policies that advance the self-determination, inclusion, and empowerment of people with developmental disabilities.

Prior to NACDD, Ms. Prangley was Associate Director of Public Policy at the American Association of University Women (AAUW), where she championed educational and economic equity with a focus on diversity and inclusion. Her Capitol Hill experience includes serving as Deputy Chief of Staff to Congressman Brad Sherman (CA) and Legislative Assistant to Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC). She has also practiced law in employment, veterans’ benefits, and immigration.

Ms. Prangley holds a J.D. from American University Washington College of Law and a B.S. in Sociology from the University of Southern California.

Sue Swenson is president of Inclusion International and serves as treasurer for the International Disability Alliance. Sue served both terms of the Obama administration as deputy and acting assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services and was director of the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research. She was appointed senior advisor in the same office in the Biden administration for 8 months in 2021-22. She was commissioner for developmental disabilities in the Clinton administration and has been executive director of the Kennedy Foundation and The Arc of the United States. Sue learned about disability from her middle son Charlie, who lived for 30 years with profound disabilities, was included in neighborhood schools, and always lived with his family and in the community. Sue was educated at the University of Chicago and holds an MBA from the University of Minnesota.