Cait Dearing
Caitlin Dearing is an Independent Living Advocate at The Whole Person where she has worked for almost 3 years. In that time, she has helped found a Consumer-driven Advocacy Group, organized trips to the state capitol for legislative days, and co-facilitated a REV UP training for the state of Missouri.
Dolores Tejada
Dolores Tejada is a queer brown fat crip Latina who has been doing disability organizing for nearly 7 years. She has worked on accessible online voter registration as part of the Disability Organizing Network, empowering youth with disabilities to use accessible voting machines in Alameda County in collaboration with the Registrar of Voters and is currently leading her second Get-Out-The-Vote campaign for Community Resources for Independent Living. As the daughter of immigrants who assisted her parents in voting from an early age, she is passionate about marginalized communities using their collective power of voting to create change. In her free time, she is an active member of Fat Liberation Community, enjoys traveling to Disneyland and spending time with her niblings (gender neutral way term in lieu of saying nieces and nephews).
Sha Burke-Stephens, MBA
Sha’ Burke-Stephens is the current Executive Director for the Arkansas SILC located in Little Rock, Arkansas. She is a native of Batesville, Arkansas and has lived in Little Rock for the past 17 years. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated and an adjunct professor teaching Master level courses. She is currently pursuing a doctorate through Nova Southeastern University in Organizational Leadership.
She is a member of NCIL serving on the Voting sub-committee and the Diversity sub-committee. She is also a member of APRIL, board member of the Arkansas Disability Policy Consortium (ADPC), the Arkansas Accessible Parking Task Force, the Job Corp Community Relations Committee and a chartering member of the National Association of University Women’s Little Rock Area Metro Branch.
She is the proud mother of three daughters; Maddie, Mallory & Chloe and one son; CJ.
Sarah Blahovec
Sarah Blahovec is a disability activist and the Communications Chair of the NCIL Voting Rights Subcommittee. She serves as the Editor-at-Large of Huffington Post Accessibility and a blogger on disability-related topics for Huffington Post. She is a 2014 graduate of American University and lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
Don Dew
Don has been the Executive Director at Disabilities Resource Center of Siouxland in Sioux City, Iowa since 2012. He has been advocating for people with disabilities since 2005. He is a member of NCIL serving on the Voting sub-committee and the co-chair of the Queer Caucus.
Don is a co-founder of Siouxland Pride Alliance, the only LGBT Resource Center in NW Iowa, and the co-founder of Iowa Disability Votes COUNT! – a new non-profit to help people with disabilities be a part of the voting process, and remove barriers to voting.
Michelle Bishop
Michelle Bishop is the Voting Rights Specialist at the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN), the nonprofit membership organization for the federally mandated Protection and Advocacy (P&A) systems for individuals with disabilities. In her role at NDRN, Michelle provides training and technical assistance to the nationwide network of P&A agencies regarding voting rights and access for voters with disabilities at the state level, coordinates NDRN’s Voting Work Group, and works collaboratively with other national organizations regarding elections administration and access to the electoral process.