Our Board of Directors

Photo of Alan Holdsworth

Alan performing at Disability Pride Philadelphia. He is a white man wearing a black t-shirt with Disability Pride written in Pink. He is playing a guitar and is singing into a microphone.

Alan Holdsworth A.K.A. Johnny Crescendo - Chair

Alan has been an educator on disability rights for 40 years as part of the first vanguard of educators through his music and poetry. He was schooled by some of the giants of the disability rights movement.

His major achievements include creating the first independent living program for people with learning disabilities, developing comprehensive training for Educators and Care Coordinators, being central to the passing Disability Discrimination Act in the UK., leading a grassroots movement, DAN the Direct Action Network, to make public transport accessible, desgregating nursery (pre K) provision in the UK, He has also been a freelance consultant and policy advisor. Alan has been educating others and himself for almost 40 years about disability. Issues. He is also a world-famous disability rights singer-songwriter and one of the forefathers of the Disability Arts movement.

Alan received the inaugural Judy Heumann Advocacy Award award from the National Independent Living Council in 2023.

"My first love is education, be it in the classroom with young people or in the walls of power with those who can set disabled people free from the discrimination that persists.”

“I am so proud of this project and I see it as my last mission to pass on to all young people our Ideas and our history to create the perfect union between disabled and non-disabled people that shapes societies and communities for the better in the future."

“I do hope that all educators will embrace this idea of opening up the conversation, use our resources and teach us how to make it more relevant to your experience and the children you teach.”

  • Lisa Aquila is a white woman looking at the camera with her hand by her chin. Her brown hair is half up and half down. She is wearing makeup and hoop earrings. She is wearing a floral scarf with a dark blue blouse

    Lisa Aquila - Vice Chair

    Lisa has been an advocate for the independent living movement since the early 1990s. Lisa has worked as a personal care attendant for Home & Community based services. Lisa has been an active volunteer for Disability Equality in Education and board member since 2017 and now serves as their Outreach Liaison. Lisa lobbied for the passage of Disability Inclusive Curriculum. She co-founded the Coalition on Disability Inclusive Curriculum with Sharon in 2021 to build awareness and support for Pennsylvania’s Disability Inclusive Curriculum Legislation which was made into law in July 2022. Lisa is a member of the Penn TASH Education Committee.

  • Stacy is a white woman, looking at the camera and smiling in front of a grey background. She is wearing a grey suit with a button down white blouse. She has light makeup on and has her burgundy hair down that goes down to her shoulders.

    Stacy McCafferty - Treasurer

    Stacy McCafferty is the Business Administrator for Disability Equality in Education (DEE) and has been with DEE since it was founded in 2017. She contributes to the mission of challenging disability stigma and promoting equality in schools and colleges in Pennsylvania and beyond. Stacy earned her Master’s Degree in Clinical-Counseling Psychology from La Salle University with honors.

  • Sharon is a white woman smiling at the camera. She is in front of a dark blurred out background. She has her burgundy hair down. She has teal-rimmed glasses and she is wearing an aqua blue blouse with a necklace on.

    Sharon Pennock - Secretary

    Sharon Pennock has been a volunteer and board member with Disability Equality in Education since its founding in 2017 and co-founded the Coalition on Disability Inclusive Curriculum with Lisa in 2021. Though she didn’t have the language for it, and didn’t fully recognize it growing up or even into adulthood, she now realizes she was drawn to this work, in part, because she’s always been a disabled person herself. Her experience inspires her passion to ensure students today learn about disability history and disabled people, so they can better recognize themselves and understand the community, whether they are disabled or not. She currently serves as DEE’s Educational Resources Coordinator.

  • Christa is a white woman with long brown hair with highlights. She is looking up at the camera smiling

    Dr. Christa Bialka

    Dr. Christa S. Bialka is Associate Professor of Special Education and Director of the Undergraduate Teacher Education Program in the Department of Education and Counseling at Villanova University. Dr. Bialka received her M.Ed. in Moderate Special Needs Education from Boston College and her Ed.D. in Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a former English and Special Education teacher who currently teaches classes on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and Disability Studies in Education. Her research interests include understanding the development of teacher dispositions and raising disability awareness in K-12 and higher education.

  • Kathy is a white woman with chin length straight blond hair. She is facing the side with her head turned toward the camera. She's wearing a navy shirt and has glasses holding her hair back on top of her head.

    Kathy Brill

    Kathy Brill holds a Masters Degree in Education and Political Management with a concentration in grassroots advocacy. She currently serves on the boards of PennTASH, National Advisory Board on Improving Health Care Services for Older Adults and People with Disabilities (NAB), and is President of MCIE (Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education). She is the Co-Founder Of Parent to Parent USA, and was the first Director of Parent To Parent PA. She recently launched Brill Consulting, LLC to foster support toward full inclusion and community living for children and adults. Kathy has been an active member of The Coalition On Disability Inclusive Curriculum and supporter of DEE since their inception.

  • Anita, a Black woman with long dreadlocks smiles at the camera posing with her My Itty Bitty Bio book.

    Anita Cameron

    Anita Cameron is a disability justice activist who has been involved in social change activism and community organizing for over 40 years. She is a published author and blogger writing primarily about issues that affect people with disabilities. Her passion is working to ensure that people with disabilities are equal participants in all aspects of society, not only as recipients of services, but as valued members of, and contributors to the well-being of their communities. In 2023, Anita received the Corey Rowley National Advocacy Award from the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL).

  • Christian is a white man with dark short hair. He is wearing glasses and a dark plaid shirt. He is smiling at the camera.

    Christian Huber

    Christian Huber is a proud graduate of Bucks County Community College, where he received an Associate’s of Music (A.M.) degree. He is a singer-songwriter, aspiring virtual music educator for people with disabilities, and disability policy advocate.

    While attending Bucks, he discovered his passion for disability and mental health advocacy. By joining and eventually facilitating the Disability Pride Club for two years, he was fortunate to make friends with students with disabilities as they shared their stories. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he also worked with the Peyton Heart Project, a suicide prevention organization, to raise awareness about mental health, both virtually and on-campus.

    He has been fortunate to participate in the annual Disability Pride Day at Millersville University since 2020 and now is a student there with a double major in Disability Studies and Government, Policy, and Law (Pre-Law).

  • Nikhil is an Asian man with brown eyes and black hair smiling at the camera. He is wearing a full sleeve light purple shirt with a white moose on his heart and a black hat covering the top of his head. Behind him is a red Torii gate on the water.

    Nikhil Kishore

    Nikhil Kishore is a high school graduate attending Rutgers University as of the fall of 2024. He began advocating for disability representation in education at the age of 15 when he convinced curricular writers in his school district to adopt a comprehensive disability-inclusive curriculum. In 2022, he published an article with one of the curricular supervisors in his district on Edutopia which led to DEE discovering him and inviting him to collaborate on their mutual interests which he enthusiastically agreed to. He also publishes music under the name “Roman Karenin.”

  • Thomas Neuville is a white man with grey short hair and beard. He is smiling at. the camera and wearing a dark collared shirt and is outdoors with a forest behind him.

    Dr. Thomas Neuville

    Thomas Neuville is Professor of Special Education and Disability Studies in the Department of Educational Foundations at Millersville University in Millersville, PA. He has more than forty years’ experience in education, community, and organizational development. Dr Neuville’s current work is centered on designing coherent models of planning and program development within the systems of Education. Specifically, he is working with teacher candidates to develop strategies that are founded on social justice and focused on true personalization.