Bio – Board

Aisha Becker-Burrowes, Advisor

Aisha Becker-Burrowes

Aisha Becker-Burrowes (She/Her) is a social impact strategist, consultant and communications professional working at the intersections of media, communications and social change, with a particular emphasis on racial equity and gender justice. She co-founded and leads brand strategy and impact at FEMINIST (@feminist), the largest women-owned social-first digital platform dedicated to women, girls, and gender-expansive people with a global audience of over 6M+. [continue reading…]

Karyn Harvey, Advisor

Karyn Harvey

Karyn Harvey has worked as a clinician in the field of intellectual disabilities for over 35 years. She has her Ph.D. in Applied Developmental Psychology from the University of Maryland. She has written three books: Positive Identity Development, Trauma –Informed Behavioral Interventions and Trauma and Healing. She currently does individual and group therapy with people with intellectual disabilities. In addition, she regularly conducts trainings on trauma-informed support for people with IDD, trauma-informed leadership, and trauma-informed behavioral interventions for both state and individual organizations throughout the US and Canada.

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Toby G. Wong, Board of Directors

Toby G. Wong

Toby Wong is an accomplished global consumer marketer and sports executive who broke gender and race barriers over 25 years in Fortune 100 corporations, sports and new businesses. She is a global citizen of Chinese descent with dual American and Canadian citizenship and has resided abroad (Asia, Europe and North America). She is a late-deafened leader with passion around sports and creating inclusion, equal opportunity, and equal pay for young women and individuals with disabilities. Toby is open to Board Director and Advisor roles that will capitalize on her strengths in change management, new revenue streams, innovation, brand strategy, disability inclusion, and sports. [continue reading…]

Rhonda M. Abbott, Advisor

Rhonda M. Abbott, PT, FTPTA, FACHE,

Rhonda M. Abbott, PT, FTPTA, FACHE, is the Senior Vice President & Chief Executive Officer at TIRR Memorial Hermann, Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Hospital-Katy, Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Network. Since 2001, Abbott has held integral roles within TIRR Memorial Hermann, starting her career as a staff therapist in the spinal cord injury and specialty rehabilitation program and earning successive promotions to director of therapy services and director of clinical programs, vice president of operations and chief operating officer.

Abbott oversees TIRR Memorial Hermann’s continued excellence in rehabilitative care, research, advocacy and education across the Memorial Hermann Health System. Under her leadership, she has led clinical care redesign initiatives, translational research efforts, quality care improvements, expansion of therapy education programs and efficiency improvements. During her tenure, the Campus continues to demonstrate national recognition as a leader in rehabilitation by U.S. News & World Report as well as being designated a national rehabilitation innovation center as a result of legislation just passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law in 2023. She has oversight for strategic planning, ensuring successful transitions of care throughout the post-acute rehabilitation continuum, achieving operational program and campus growth, along with serving as a voice for advocacy at a national level. She also led TIRR expansion efforts and clinical practice leveling across our System, helped secure CARF accreditation at five Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Network locations, provided therapy direction both at TIRR Memorial Hermann and for the Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Network, and expanded the rehabilitation education program. Abbott has a passion for neurorehabilitation and teaching and is actively committed to learning, which led to her enthusiasm for therapy leadership. [continue reading…]

Faye Tate, Advisor

Faye Tate

Faye Tate is the Vice President for Diversity and inclusion at CoBank. CoBank is a member of the Farm Credit System, a nationwide network of banks and retail lending associations chartered to support the borrowing needs of U. S. agriculture, rural infrastructure and rural communities.

Ms. Tate is well-known in the field of diversity and inclusion, having a proven track record in successfully developing and implementing strategic diversity and inclusion plans for multiple organizations. [continue reading…]

Tom Newman, Advisor

Tom Newman

Tom Newman is founder and partner at KNA, a boutique advisory firm. KNA specializes in digital transformation in the media and technology sector. He has over 20 years of experience launching, investing and operating digital media companies. He founded and was CEO of Interactive One, the leading urban millennial digital media company. Prior to that, he was SVP of mergers and acquisitions for Time Warner, head of corporate strategy for AOL Media, and prior to that a banker at Goldman Sachs. Tom is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Tom serves on the board of Asphalt Green and New Alternatives for Children. He lives in New York City with his wife and two boys. He is was born with phocomelia, a congenital disability of the legs and spine, and uses a wheelchair to navigate the potholes of New York.

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Malhar Shah, Advisor

Malhar Shah

Born and raised in Downey, California, Malhar Shah is the child of Indian immigrants from Mumbai, India. His own struggles with mental health disabilities inspired his passion for education law and policy. Malhar graduated from University of California, Riverside and Harvard Law School Cum Laude.

Malhar currently works as the education attorney at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund in Berkeley, California. His advocacy and litigation work focus on reforming State-level special education monitoring mechanisms to ensure school districts throughout California provide quality services to disabled students.

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Nicole LeBlanc, Board of Directors

Nicole LeBlanc

Nicole LeBlanc has a keen ability and interest in public policy and excels at communicating the needs of people with developmental disabilities to public officials. In December of 2020, she started working as the Self Advocate Advisor with TASH on the AOD Disability Employment TA Center, where she researches material on employment and self advocacy, recruits focus group members, and drafts blogs and social media posts.

Ever since the day Nicole first stepped foot in Washington, D.C. with her mentor Chester Finn, she knew she wanted to live in the political universe. Nicole has presented or facilitated webinars and video blogs on the topics of healthcare, autism, presuming competence, self-managed services, voter access, COVID-19, the dignity of risk, and employment of people with disabilities. She has worked with organizations including Green Mountain Self-Advocates, Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered, the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, and the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. In the summer of 2019, Nicole won the David Joyce Advocate of the Year award for outstanding policy advocacy on Capitol Hill.

In 2017, Nicole was a Public Policy Fellow at Disability Belongs™, and has spoken at several Disability Belongs™ events since then. In 2022, Nicole was the first-ever recipient of the organization’s Steve Bartlett Award, which recognizes and honors an individual in the private or public sector who demonstrates a strong commitment to using the political system to advance public policy in support of people with disabilities.

Nicole is a natural leader chosen by her peers due to her unwavering commitment to speaking the truth to power. Nicole is one who is not willing to shy away from taking on big challenges and new adventures. Her motto is “control your own destiny or someone else will.” Her hobbies are following politics, ice skating, reading, going to conferences, hiking, exercising at the gym, traveling, hanging out with her best friends and alternative medicine.

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Tamala Patrice Scott, Board of Directors

Tamala Patrice Scott

Tamala Patrice Scott brings more that 17 years of development and fundraising experience across a variety of non-profit organizations. As a Philadelphia native, Tamala relocated to Virginia for a change in scenery and to start her career where she was introduced to the field of development and loved it.

Over the course of Tamala’s career, she has led fundraising efforts to raise millions of dollars for non-profit organizations such as the United Negro College Fund, Paralyzed Veterans of America, The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, The Arc of the US and Childhelp, Inc., just to name a few. Tamala’s years of development experience include working with corporate and family foundations, corporations, major donors, board members, sponsors and managing special events.

Tamala is excited to join the Disability Belongs™ board and looks forward to helping to raise awareness and visibility for this wonderful organization.

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