Kim Lan is a nonprofit advancement professional; culture and policy journalist; graphic designer, web developer and photographer; and a DEIAB (diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging) educator and advocate in San Francisco, CA. She is the founder of the Redefining Disabled Project; co-founder of the Accessible Icon Project--Durham, NC; former Board member of Disability Rights North Carolina, having served as Board Chair in 2020-2022; and a mother of two ‘tweens, one of whom has Type 1 Diabetes.
She has had the honor of lecturing and advising the North Carolina Orange County Human Relations Council, the Durham Housing Authority, Duke University's undergraduate biomedical engineering students, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, among other for- and non-profit organizations on diversity, equity, inclusion, and universal design.
Kim Lan's wildest dreams were realized in 2016 when she delivered a TEDx Talk at UNC's Memorial Hall on the topic of disability inclusion and awareness and, again, in 2017 when she held the role of Impact Strategist and Producer for the independent documentary film Farmer/Veteran, highlighting PTSD, transgenerational trauma, and compassion fatigue amongst post-9/11 war veterans and their families. The film earned numerous awards and accolades, including Best Documentary Feature, in festivals from Brooklyn to Shanghai and premiered on PBS' Independent Lens on Memorial Day 2017, to an audience of an estimated 1.7 million viewers.
Each day, she lives out her American Dream as the daughter of refugees, her father a Holocaust survivor and her mother a Vietnamese Boat Person, advancing the vision and mission of the national office of the League of Women Voters as their Major Gifts Officer. She has a BA in Writing from the University of San Francisco.
As an above-knee amputee, Kim Lan is an adaptive sports athlete, finding the most fun in kayaking and archery.