Speakers

Keri Gray (Opening Plenary)

Keri Gray is a cancer survivor, entrepreneur, speaker, and facilitator. She is the CEO of the Keri Gray Consulting Group, where they strive to create professional communities of understanding through disability and racial justice education. She is also founder of the National Alliance of Melanin Disabled Advocates (the NAMED Advocates), which creates spaces for disabled leaders of color and BIPOC allies to gather, learn, connect, and grow around racial and disability justice.

Keri’s work has been featured in Teen Vogue, the New York Times, People Magazine, Time Magazine, PBS NewsHour, Madamenoire, and the Diet Coke campaign #Unlabeled.

Tony Coelho (Opening Plenary)

Tony Coelho was elected to Congress in 1978 and served for six terms until 1989. He served on the Agriculture, Interior, Veterans Affairs, and Administration Committees during his tenure, specializing in disabled rights.

Coelho was the original author of the Americans with Disabilities Act, signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. President Bill Clinton appointed Coelho to serve as Chairman of the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, a position he held from 1994 to 2001. He also served as Vice Chair of the National Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities.

In March 2009, Coelho was named as Chairperson for the Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC). In this capacity, Coelho works to amplify the voice of the partnership’s diverse members, including people with disabilities, racial and ethnic communities and the elderly, among others.

Cliff Perez (Opening Plenary)

Clifton Perez of Troy, New York has been working in the field of advocacy to enhance and defend the rights of people with disabilities since 1985. He holds a Master’s degree in social work from the University of Stony Brook NY.

Cliff currently serves as the Systems Advocate for the Independent Living Center of the Hudson Valley. He has served as NCIL’s Vice President and Region II Representative. He represented NCIL on the U.S Access Board’s Railroad & Vehicle Accessibility Advisory Committee (RVAAC). In 2016, he was appointed to the New York SILC and to represent NYSILC on the state Rehabilitation Council.

Jim Ward (Opening Plenary)

Jim Ward, MSW is the founder and executive director of ADA Watch and the Coalition for Disability Rights & Justice (CDRJ), an alliance of disability, civil rights and social justice organizations working to amplify the many voices of the U.S. disability rights movement. He is a person with a neurodevelopmental disability, a former elected official and a father. He produced the Road To Freedom bus tour and lived on the road for 18 months mobilizing grassroots support for passage of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008.

A former elected official and state party executive, Jim is a senior communications and government relations professional with extensive experience in building powerful coalitions of individuals and organizations to promote causes and effect real change. Ward has considerable experience in public policy analysis and advocacy, as well as drafting legislation and lobbying the U.S. Congress, Executive Branch, Federal agencies, and state and local governments. He is a veteran grassroots organizer committed to leadership development, organization building and community empowerment.

Sherman Gillums, Jr. (Awards Luncheon)

Sherman Gillums, Jr., Ed.D, serves as FEMA’s disability coordinator and the director of its Office of Disability Integration and Coordination (ODIC), located in the agency’s Washington D.C. headquarters. In his role, Sherman advises FEMA Administrator Criswell on meeting the agency’s commitment to equity in emergency management for people with disabilities.

Since joining FEMA in August 2022, Sherman has deployed to six disasters and led the national-level public narrative for people with disabilities on nearly a dozen emergency response efforts, in his capacity as the agency’s lead advisor on disability integration. In March 2023, Sherman released to the FEMA workforce his Director’s Intent, “A Guide to Meeting the Disability Integration Mission.” The vision focuses on 14 potential points of inequity and a pre-landfall risk assessment that can substantially extend the disaster lifecycle for people with disabilities and older adults.

Alison Barkoff (Closing Plenary)

Alison Barkoff was sworn in as Principal Deputy Administrator on January 20, 2021 and is currently performing the duties of the ACL Administrator and the Assistant Secretary for Aging. She provides executive leadership and coordination for ACL programs nationwide and advises the HHS Secretary on issues affecting people with disabilities and older adults.

As part of countless coalitions of people with disabilities, older adults, and advocates, she has fought to uphold the rights of people with disabilities and older adults and advance policies to ensure their access to health care, housing, employment, education, and all other facets of community life. She has testified before Congress and the US Commission on Civil Rights on disability rights and community living. She has served in a variety of leadership roles with disability rights organizations, including leading advocacy efforts at the Center for Public Representation and the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.