Bio – Fellow – Past Fellows

National Leadership Program, Summer 2020

Maria Fernanda Heredia was a Nonprofit Management Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program for Summer 2020. RespectAbility is a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so that people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community.

Originally from New Orleans, Heredia graduated in June of 2020 from Williams College in Williamstown, MA, with a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Highest Honors in Art. Her decision to pursue these majors came from a passion for learning more about the composition of materials and research, as well as learning about non-Western works of art that spoke about indigenous narratives in Latin America. While at Williams, Heredia was involved in various of student-led organizations and departments that centered around inclusivity, diversity, and equity. [continue reading…]

National Leadership Program, Summer 2020

Angelique Uwabera

Angelique Uwabera was a Nonprofit Management Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program for Summer 2020. RespectAbility is a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so that people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of the community.

Uwabera was also a returning Fellow from the Spring 2019 cohort. She was part of the policy team in which she participated in raising awareness about issues affecting people with disabilities at Capitol Hill. She also published 14 press releases on the performance of some states in their employment progress for people with disabilities. [continue reading…]

National Leadership Program, Summer 2020

Nicole Homerin

Nicole Homerin was a Community Outreach Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program for Summer 2020. RespectAbility is a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so that people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community.

As an incoming Doctoral student in Special Education at California State University, Los Angeles, Homerin has over a decade of experience working with individuals with disabilities. Homerin received her Master’s Degree in Special Education from Boston College, where she was the recipient of the Bernard A. Stotsky/Thomas H. Browne Prize for Excellence in Special Education. In addition, Homerin holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Early Childhood Education from Boston University. [continue reading…]

National Leadership Program, Summer 2020

Laka Mitiku Negassa

Laka Mitiku Negassa was a Policy Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program. RespectAbility is a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so that people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community.

Negassa previously had the opportunity to be part of RespectAbility’s Summer 2019 Fellowship cohort. This experience opened her eyes more to the different public policy issues as well as health policy issues Americans with disabilities regularly encounter. This experience has enabled her to see and experience the kind of efforts required to have quality advocacy campaigns that are able to affect an issue and initiate solutions. [continue reading…]

National Leadership Program, Spring/Summer 2020

Lily Coltoff

Lily Coltoff was a Communications Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program for Spring and Summer 2020. RespectAbility is a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so that people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community.

Originally from Philadelphia, Coltoff graduated in December 2019 from American University in Washington, D.C., with a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies and Public Health. Her decision to pursue these majors came from a passion for writing and science, as well as a desire to make health information more accessible and understandable to everyone. [continue reading…]

National Leadership Program, Spring 2020

John “Jack” Rukeyser

John “Jack” Rukeyser was a Nonprofit Management Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program for the Spring of 2020. RespectAbility is a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so that people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community.

Rukeyser was born in Brooklyn, New York, where he lived for five years before moving to the coastal town of Rockport, Massachusetts. However, Washington, D.C., has become his new home during the school year since he started college there in the fall of 2017.

That school is American University, where Rukeyser is currently a junior on track to graduate in the summer of 2021. There, he studies Communications, Law, Economics, and Government in addition to pursuing a minor in History.

From a young age, Rukeyser worked alongside people with disabilities, volunteering at his local food pantry and community meals center. There, he realized that the most prevalent commonality among people who regularly came to the evening dinners was having a disability. Rukeyser hopes that his time at RespectAbility will help him understand the barriers and misperceptions that the disability community faces in a society that measures people on their profitability, not their individual strengths.

Rukeyser is happiest when he is road-tripping. Driving is his passion. He loves exploring new places and everything about the automotive world. He is fascinated by the underappreciated diversity of environments, neighborhoods, and cultures that can be experienced within just a short drive or on the way to a destination that flyers miss by about 30,000 feet.

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National Leadership Program, Spring 2020

Demetrious Lara

Demetrious Lara was a Communications Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program for Spring 2020. RespectAbility is a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so that people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community.

Lara is from Englewood, New Jersey. He graduated from American University in May 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications Studies and a minor in Cinema Studies. He hopes to seek employment within the entertainment industry as a social media manager, or in digital communications.

Lara’s professional experience includes a part-time communications internship at Friendship Place, a nonprofit organization focused on combating homelessness in Washington, D.C. At Friendship Place, he worked alongside the development team’s social media and outreach manager to create effective promotional materials designed to gauge interest in their various programs aimed at many of the district’s homeless or housing-insecure residents. A key part of Lara’s tenure as an intern with Friendship Place was the promotion of Friendship Walks, a 1.5 mile walk around the National Mall aimed at raising money for their ongoing fight against homelessness.

Lara’s work as an intern for Friendship Place also helped him identify a prevalence of disability, be it nonvisible or visible, among individuals experiencing homelessness compared to the general population, which led him to join the RespectAbility team. His goal in completing the Fellowship was to hone his online content creation skills, which includes writing blogs and producing infographics.

In his spare time, Lara enjoys playing video games. Some favorites of his include classic DOOM, Metal Gear, and Metroid. He also considers himself something of a cinema aficionado. He enjoys science fiction movies such as Blade Runner and The Fifth Element. He takes great pleasure in pursuing these passions with his friends and family.

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National Leadership Program, Spring 2020

Baksha Ali

Baksha Ali was a Community Outreach Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program for Spring of 2020. RespectAbility is a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so that people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community.

Ali was born in Bangladesh. Her family moved to the United States when she was six years old because she was diagnosed with Retina Pigmentosa. Ali attained her associate’s degree in Business Administration in LaGuardia Community College in New York City in June 2017. Recently, she graduated from Queens College with her bachelor’s degree in Sociology. During summer 2019, she was a Work Force Development Intern at Vision, a nonprofit organization that assists people with disabilities attain employment and find alternative ways to live an independent life. Her role consisted of conducting online research and locating job fairs and networking events for a client case load of 30 job seekers with disabilities.

Ali is interested in working for nonprofit organizations that work with people with disabilities because she is passionate about helping others. She will eventually pursue her master’s degree in Vocational Counseling.

Ali’s passions include listening to audio books and 90’s music. Her all-time favorite book is Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire by JK Rowling. She loves chocolate and spending time with her friends and family. Ali loves to meet new people and wishes to travel around the world one day.

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National Leadership Program, Spring 2020

Karolyne Kim

Karolyne Kim was a Public Policy Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program for Spring 2020. RespectAbility is a nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so that people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of the community.

Kim was born and raised in Virginia. She received her B.A. in Public Health and minored in Visual Arts at The Johns Hopkins University.

Her interest in public policy started at the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Prevention where she assisted the principal investigator by gathering research on current driving policies for teen driving across the United States, conducting experiments and analyzing the data to find any interesting statistical patterns. Her passion for public policy developed further at the Institute for Global Tobacco Control. Health policy efforts against Big Tobacco always have interested her, and she used this opportunity to research how South Korean tobacco companies changed their marketing methods to best combat government policies designed to decrease tobacco use. In South Korea, she optimized the data collection process by using socioeconomic data, research on where people are most likely to buy their cigarettes, and logistics data such as where tobacco companies are likely to advertise new packaging.

During her senior year at Johns Hopkins, Kim took a full year of masters’ courses focusing especially on policy research at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and realized that she wanted to help create public health programs that educate and influence equal opportunity for people with disabilities. At RespectAbility, she will further her education about public policy and people with disabilities.

Kim has lived abroad during her middle school and high school years in South Korea and in Vietnam. Consequently, she loves to travel and has traveled to more than 25 different countries. Once a member of the Ho Chi Minh City Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera as a violist, she now enjoys playing viola occasionally at home. During her time at Johns Hopkins University, she enjoyed debating as a member of the Johns Hopkins Undergraduate Debate Council and ice skating with the Hopkins Figure Skating Club. She is honored to have won first place with her public health scholar bowl team in the 2018 National Public Health Quiz Bowl competition. In her free time, Kim enjoys curling up with her cat and reading a good book.

Learn More About The National Leadership Program