San Francisco's Department of Aging and Adult Services has hired the Longmore Institute to create a new disability cultural center that will provide San Franciscans with an accessible space to socialize, build community, educate, and express and foster disability culture. Meet the team of experts who will guide this project!:
Alice Wong
Founder/ Director - Disability Visibility Project
Alice is a media maker, research consultant, and disability activist based in San Francisco, CA. She is the Founder of the Disability Visibility Project™ (DVP), a community partnership with StoryCorps and an online community dedicated to creating, amplifying, and sharing disability media and culture.
Bruce Wolfe
Chief Information Officer - Alcohol Justice / SF Community Hand Trust / Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council
Bruce is a professional audio engineer, stage manager and T'ai Chi instructor. Bruce holds a Master’s Degree in Social Work with a concentration in Social Development from San Francisco State University and is a Life Coach.
Elizabeth Grigsby
Community Advocate - Golden Gate Regional Center
Elizabeth works for Golden Gate Regional Center since 1995 as the Consumer Rights Advocate. Her philosophy towards self-advocacy is to help individuals with disabilities thrive and get the best services possible that they deserve.
Fiona Hinze
Systems Change Coordinator/Community Organizer - ILRC-SF
Fiona works to ensure consumers are aware of advocacy opportunities in the community, such as calls to action on various issues. She serves on the State Independent Living Council and is a member of the Disability Organizing Network.
Jessica Lehman
Executive Director - Senior & Disability Action
Jessica supports domestic worker rights as a founding member and leader of Hand in Hand: the Domestic Employers Association. She leads monthly Organizer’s Forum calls, as part of the National Disability Leadership Alliance, to share ideas and experiences related to organizing the disability community.
Lisamaria Martinez
Director of Community Services - LightHouse for the Blind
Lisamaria has always been an advocate for the blind, she studied social welfare at U.C. Berkeley, and began volunteering at the LightHouse. She worked at the Hatlen Center for the Blind as a living skills and braille instructor. She has Masters from Louisiana Tech in Psychology program with an emphasis in Orientation & Mobility. Lisamaria is now Director of Community Services at LightHouse.
Marti Goddard
Director of Access Services - San Francisco Public Library
Marti has focused much of her work toward ensuring universal access for library users with disabilities to all of the Library's collections and programs of service. She is most active in ASCLA, the Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies, where she currently is chair of the Universal Access Interest Group and the ALA Diversity Council. Marti served as editor of "Guidelines for Library and Information Services for the American Deaf Community" and is coordinating efforts for a revised edition of those guidelines.
Nicole Bohn
Director - SF Mayor's Office on Disability
Nicole began her professional career in 1997 providing crisis intervention and reasonable accommodation counseling services for individuals with disabilities. She worked at the University of San Francisco from 1997 to 2008, during which time she was progressively responsible for managing and overseeing the University’s reasonable accommodation program and policies. Most recently, Nicole served as the Director of the Disability Programs and Resource Center at San Francisco State University, leading and coordinating centralized compliance efforts for a campus with more than 30,000 students and 3,800 employees during the last eight years.
Orkid Sassouni
Employee at SFPL - Deaf Services
Orkid received her B.A degree in Art History and Museum Studies from Gallaudet University. Orkid attended Parsons School of Design in New York City from which she received a B.F.A degree. She attended San Francisco State University to study Inter Art Center. She received her M.A degree in Interdisciplinary Arts: Concentration in Education in 2002, a rare major that allowed Orkid to study multi-disciplines in theory, education, research, and discussion. She currently works at the San Francisco Public Library’s Deaf Services Center. She is also a past President and Coordinator for Deaf Visual and Performing Artists, known as DVPA. But Orkid has never abandoned her love of photography. Her photographs and mixed media artworks have been shown in galleries across the United States.
Tiffany Yu
CEO/Founder - DiversAbility
Tiffany graduated with honors from Georgetown University and currently live in San Francisco. She is a speaker, social impact entrepreneur, diversity & inclusion community builder, and inclusion and empowerment advocate. She is the CEO & Founder of Diversability (rebranding disability through community) and the Founder of the Awesome Foundation Disability Chapter. She has been named one of the "100 most influential Asian Americans of 2017," one of "100 visionary leaders," and a "women of influence" honoree.