Redefining normal,
reshaping our world

David Alpaugh

Urban Designer and Community Planner, Johnson Fain

David Alpaugh is a principal in the Los Angeles studio of Johnson Fain, managing urban design and planning projects for public and private clients throughout the United States, Asia, and the Middle East. He has a particular interest in community participation in the planning and design process, with work on a range of project types from educational and medical facilities to large-scale mixed-use and transit-oriented master plans. His commitment to disability rights advocacy spans over 25 years, inspired by his late daughter’s experience in disability studies and disability rights while a student at UC Berkeley.

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

Professor Emerita of English, Emory University

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is a disability justice and culture thought leader, bioethicist, educator, and humanities scholar. Her work in bioethics, critical disability studies, and health humanities brings disability culture, ethics, and justice to a broad range of institutions and communities. She is co-editor of About Us: Essays from the New York Times about Disability by People with Disabilities and the author of Staring: How We Look as well as several other books. She is a Hastings Center Fellow and Senior Advisor and professor emerita of English and bioethics at Emory University.

Julia Karpicz

PhD Candidate in Higher Education & Organization Change, UCLA

Julia Rose Karpicz is currently a doctoral candidate in UCLA’s Higher Education and Organizational Change program. Her scholarship uses critical disability theory to examine access labor in university settings, centering the perspectives and experiences of disabled Students of Color. Julia served as the Coordinator for the 2019-20 UCLA Disability Studies Community Internship course, offered through the Center for Community Learning. Prior to joining UCLA, Julia worked in postsecondary disability services on the East Coast, focusing on access within study abroad and graduate education. She has consulted on web accessibility and accessible content creation at a range of non-profit organizations.

Jessica Kianmahd

Genetic Counselor of Pediatrics, UCLA

Jessica Kianmahd is a certified and licensed genetic counselor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Genetics. She provides genetic counseling in general pediatric and adult medical genetics clinics, craniofacial and chromatinopathies specialty clinics, and the inpatient service. She recently joined the MS in Genetic Counseling program at UCLA as a clinical instructor. An alumna of UCLA’s Disability Studies minor program, she enjoys teaching, mentoring, and providing clinical supervision to genetic counseling student interns. She currently serves on the advisory board for Camp Kesem at UCLA and the Board of Directors of Friendship Circle of Los Angeles.

Miso Kwak

PhD student in Special Education at University of Wisconsin-Madison

Miso Kwak (she/her) (UCLA ’17) is pursuing a PhD in Special Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Building on her lived experience as a blind Korean-American, her scholarship and activism seek to center the perspectives of disabled people, particularly those who experience additional forms of oppression. Her professional experiences prior to starting her doctoral studies include working as a policy analyst at the Human Services Research Institute and teaching in Turkey as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant.

Beth Ribet

Executive Director, Repair

Beth Ribet is the co-founder and director of Repair, a health and disability justice organization that addresses the disabling consequences of exploitation, inequity, and violence through community programming, training, and policy work. Her doctorate in Social Relations and her law degree with a concentration in Critical Race Studies position her well to address the role of subordination, violence, and inequity in creating new disabilities, injuries, and illnesses among vulnerable populations. In addition to her research, teaching, and non-profit sector work, she also speaks publicly as a survivor of violence, and a person with disabilities.