Cheryl Lundy Swift has been a dedicated educator for over 20 years. Cheryl is an award-winning educational leader, curriculum developer, motivational speaker and facilitator. She has developed and delivered leadership, team building, and a variety of instructional topics to help transform leadership teams and instructional practices to improve culture and climate, instructional effectiveness, parent involvement and student outcomes for thousands of school leaders and teachers across the country. She has designed, developed and delivered literacy and math curriculum to benefit thousands of students, teachers and parents across the country. She served as the Lead Curriculum Developer for Learning Without Tears’ Get Set for School’s Language and Literacy curriculum, which received an AEP Distinguished Achievement award. In 2017, Cheryl was awarded the Investor Bank’s Educator of the Year Award.

Mary Faithfull recently retired after working at Disability Rights Texas (DRTx) for 37 years, serving as the Executive Director for the last twenty-one years. As a person living with a disability, she knows firsthand the need for and the importance of the services provided by the federally mandated Protection and Advocacy (P&A) agencies. Mary believes that the right supports and services, combined with advocacy and enforcement of disability rights laws, levels the playing field so that people with disabilities can be fully engaged, integrated and contributing members of their communities.

Justice Shorter is a skilled organizer/facilitator, Disability Justice amplifier and senior advisor on issues at the intersection of race, disability, gender, climate, and crises. She is a national expert on disability inclusive disaster protections, emergency management and humanitarian crises/conflicts.

Dennis Groenenboom spent his entire professional career working to provide access to the justice system to low-income people. After graduating from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1978, he joined the Legal Services Corporation of Iowa (now Iowa Legal Aid), and served as a staff attorney, senior staff attorney, managing attorney, Deputy Director and then as the program’s Executive Director for over 25 years. Since “retirement“ in 2018, Dennis has worked on a part-time basis as a consultant with legal aid programs in many states and a variety of not-for-profit organizations in Iowa. Work has included, mergers, strategic planning, program assessments, policy review and executive searches.

Kim Lan is a nonprofit advancement professional; culture and policy journalist; graphic designer, web developer and photographer; and a DEIAB 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.