Our Leadership
Linda Corcoran (she/they) Executive Director & Events & Accessibility Coordinator Linda is currently a Teagsc Walsh Scholar completing an MSc (by research) in Food Science at University College Cork and Teagasc Ashtown (Ireland). Their research looks at linking consumer liking to steer feeding systems using novel sensory methods. Being an LGBTQ+ researcher with multiple disabilities, Linda is very passionate about diversity and inclusion as well as creating safe, accessible spaces. They also volunteers for several other organisations and serves as Grad Chat Lead for PhD Balance, and Accessibility Director for Dragonfly Mental Health. |
Syreeta Nolan (she/Her) Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer Syreeta Nolan is a disability justice advocate. She serves as co-founder of Disabled in Higher Education on Twitter (@DisInHigherEd) and is the founder of JADE (Justice, Advocacy and Disability Education). Her lived experience as a Black, Disabled, bisexual woman have informed her advocacy goals along with her career goals. As a board member of HealthAdvocateX, she hopes to expand the reach of health advocacy in partnership with her organization while bringing disability advocacy and health advocacy together. Syreeta graduated with her Bachelor’s in Human Health Psychology from the University of California San Diego and hopes to continue to obtain a PhD in Health Policy or Prevention Science. |
Ava Gurba (she/Her) Co-Founder & Chief Organizational Officer Ava is currently an MS student in Neuroscience in the United States. Currently, she is doing work in the field of autism. She currently is working on many projects and initiatives related to the inclusion of disabled, neurodivergent, and autistic individuals. She is a disabled advocate and is passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education and STEM. She co-founded Disabled in Higher Ed to help amplify disabled voices and demonstrate why disability access and inclusion is an important issue within education and employment. |
Alyssa Paparella (She/Her) Mentorship Program COORDINATOR Alyssa Paparella is currently a second-year graduate student at Baylor College of Medicine and a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. During the pandemic, Alyssa created a platform called DisabledInSTEM (@DisabledSTEM) to connect the STEM community. Through this program, she has created a mentoring program, conducted interviews with those disabled in STEM, and created more awareness at various conferences (such as having a successful session proposal at ABRCMS and being a speaker of her experiences at ReclaimingSTEM). |
Amanda Klingler (She/Her) Digital MEDIA COORDINATOR Amanda Klingler is a disabled graduate student in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA. Amanda is broadly interested in investigating how animals' genes interact with their environment to affect their behavior. Since beginning her graduate school career, Amanda has begun to focus on disability advocacy, serving as platform organizer for the online community Disabled in Higher Education, and a graduate student co-chair on the University of California System Disability Ad Hoc Committee. During her time at UCLA, Amanda hopes to facilitate disabled undergraduate students' participation in research and develop disability awareness training for STEM professors and teaching assistants. Amanda plans to pursue a career where she can engage in full-time mentorship of early-career scientists. |
Haley Branch (She/Her) AdministratiON COORDINATOR Haley Branch is a PhD candidate in botany at the University of British Columbia. She has been a wellbeing advocate at her university for the past 3 years, founding an inter-departmental wellness initiative and working with graduate students in other departments across campus to create similar programs. Haley also assisted with the mentoring program developed by DisabledInStem to match disabled mentees with mentors. She believes that disability is often neglected when discussing diversity and when discussing wellbeing, particularly in higher education. She thinks academia can become a more accessible place for chronically ill and disabled individuals and hopes that through this community she can help make that happen. |