Bio - Staff Archives - Disability Belongs

Ashley DuPont Nyaley

Ashley DuPont Nyaley, Senior Director, Marketing and Communications

Ashley DuPont Nyaley

Ashley DuPont Nyaley (she/her) is the Senior Director, Marketing and Communications, at the disability advocacy nonprofit organization Disability Belongs™.

Nyaley is a graphic designer and marketer who embarked on her professional journey in 2011. Having graduated from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in Tallahassee, Florida, she returned to her hometown of Miami to pursue her career. As she progressed in her field, she observed the lack of representation for BIPOC individuals in marketing and design. To tackle this issue, she volunteered through her sorority, educating businesses on the experiences of BIPOC individuals in traditional work environments.

Nyaley has been dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in her personal and professional life. Prior to joining Disability Belongs™, she served as a marketing director for The Arc for more than 4 years. Her user experience and marketing expertise has enabled her to make all spaces more inclusive. She is committed to promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the workplace and community, and ensuring accurate representation of intersectional communities in media and corporate settings.

Contact Ashley DuPont Nyaley

Reach Nyaley at AshleyN@DisabilityBelongs.org.

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Lauren Appelbaum

Lauren Appelbaum, Senior Vice President, Entertainment and Media

Lauren Appelbaum

Lauren Appelbaum (she/her) is the Senior Vice President, Entertainment and Media, at the disability advocacy nonprofit organization Disability Belongs™.

Appelbaum brings more than 15 years of experience in strategic and crisis communications, writing, video and web production, news gathering and social media to the disability agenda. Previously she served as a digital researcher with the NBC News political unit for the 2006 midterm and 2008 presidential elections with Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell.

As an individual with an acquired nonvisible disability – Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy – she works at the intersection of disability, employment, Hollywood, and politics. From entertainment professionals to presidential campaigns, journalists to philanthropists, she conducts trainings on the why and how to be more inclusive and accessible.

Appelbaum partners with studios, production companies and writers’ rooms to create equitable and accessible opportunities to increase the number of people with lived disability experience throughout the overall story-telling process. These initiatives increase diverse and authentic representation of disabled people on screen, leading to systemic change in how society views and values people with disabilities. She has consulted on more than 100 TV episodes and films with 9Story Media Group, A&E, Bunim-Murray Productions, DreamWorks Animation, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Nickelodeon, ViacomCBS, The Walt Disney Company, and Warner Bros. Discovery, among others. She represents Disability Belongs™ on the CAA Full Story Initiative Advisory Council, Disney+ Content Advisory Council, MTV Entertainment Group Culture Code and Sundance Institute’s Allied Organization Initiative.

Appelbaum also increases hiring initiatives of people with disabilities behind the camera and enriches the pool of disabled talent in Hollywood by connecting them to those who can assist with their careers, both on the creative and business sides of the industry. She is the author of The Hollywood Disability Inclusion Toolkit, which was created to help entertainment professionals to be as inclusive of people with disabilities as possible, and the creator of an innovative Lab Program for entertainment professionals with disabilities working in development, production and post-production. She is a recipient of the 2020 Roddenberry Foundation Impact Award for this Lab.

Appelbaum is a sought-after expert and has been quoted by many national publications including Associated Press, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, The Los Angeles Jewish Journal, The New York Times, RealScreen, Reuters, Tablet, USA Today, Variety and The Washington Post. She has spoken on panels at the Association of Health Care Journalists Conference, ComNet, RealScreen Summit, Sundance Film Festival and SXSW, among others.

She also supervises several Fellows through Disability Belongs™’ National Leadership Program. Her Fellows ultimately want to go into careers in the entertainment industry or in the media.

Outside of work, Appelbaum is active in community theater. She has served in a variety of behind-the-scenes roles for more than a dozen musicals and plays. Having organized volunteer ASL interpreters and coordinated ADA seating at performances, as well as directing a nonverbal actor with cerebral palsy who uses a wheelchair, she understands first-hand the importance of inclusion of both performers and others with disabilities.

Born and raised in the Philadelphia area, Appelbaum has a master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from Syracuse University; she also has undergraduate degrees from Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary. She serves on several national and local nonprofit boards. Appelbaum currently lives in Maryland with her husband, daughter, and dog. She travels nationally, often to the Los Angeles area.

Contact Lauren Appelbaum

Reach Appelbaum at LaurenA@DisabilityBelongs.org.

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Kevin McCloskey

Kevin McCloskey, Senior Director, Leadership and Workforce Development

Kevin McCloskey

Kevin McCloskey is the Senior Director, Leadership and Workforce Development, at the disability advocacy nonprofit organization Disability Belongs™.

Kevin has more than a decade of experience in the human resources and workforce development industries. Kevin worked with large employers such as Pepsi, Frito Lay, Synchrony, and more to develop programs to actively attract, hire, and retain talent with disabilities. With the firm belief that changing lives requires changing minds, Kevin led the research, development, and implementation of a training suite to educate employers on all topics related to disability inclusion and training for job seekers and talent partners to educate and prepare to successfully get a job or help a job seeker obtain the job. Kevin built a network of ten thousand-plus nonprofit organizations like educational entities, workforce centers, vocational rehabilitation offices, veteran groups, etc., that refer the best-matched talent to employers.

Before joining Disability Belongs™, Kevin was the VP of Development with GoodGames, which uses game-inspired tools and experiences to gather story-based data to enhance employee engagement, ignite productivity, and improve mental health in the workplace.

Kevin resides in Connecticut with his wife, three children, and their dog, Noopy.

Contact Kevin McCloskey

Reach McCloskey at KevinM@DisabilityBelongs.org.

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Tonya Koslo

Tonya Koslo, Vice President, Finance and Operations

Tonya Koslo

Tonya Koslo is the Vice President, Finance and Operations at the disability advocacy nonprofit organization Disability Belongs™.

Koslo is an experienced administrator whose skills include database management, state charitable registrations, computers, billing, legal requirements of human resource administration, websites and support services.

Prior to joining Disability Belongs™, Koslo worked for Laszlo and Associates as the Executive Assistant and Office Manager and for eleven years in various capacities for the Mayor, Town Board and Town Administrator Biltmore Forest, North Carolina. In her free time, she volunteers at her church, is the president of her homeowner’s association and is active in local adoption groups.

Contact Tonya Koslo

Reach Koslo at TonyaK@DisabilityBelongs.org.

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Graciano Petersen

Graciano Petersen, Vice President, People, Culture, and Learning

Graciano Petersen

Graciano Petersen is the Vice President, People, Culture, and Learning, at the disability advocacy nonprofit organization Disability Belongs™. [continue reading…]

Rebecca Langbein

Rebecca Langbein, Manager, National Leadership Program

Rebecca Langbein

Rebecca Langbein is the Manager, National Leadership Program, at the disability advocacy nonprofit organization Disability Belongs™. [continue reading…]

Shelly Christensen

Shelly Christensen, Senior Director, Faith and Spirituality

Shelly Christensen

Shelly Christensen, MA, FAAIDD, is the Senior Director, Faith and Spirituality, at the disability advocacy nonprofit organization Disability Belongs™. [continue reading…]

Franklin Anderson

Franklin Anderson, Senior Director, Inclusive Philanthropy and Partnerships

Franklin Anderson

Franklin Anderson (he/him) is the Senior Director, Inclusive Philanthropy and Partnerships, at the disability advocacy nonprofit organization Disability Belongs™.

Anderson is a passionate professional who fights for equal rights and opportunities for all marginalized communities. His passion in the disability space is ensuring the disability community has access to education, economic opportunity and fair representation in society broadly.

At Disability Belongs™, his work is focused on foundation and donor relations, as well as leading the inclusive philanthropy program. Anderson helps enable major foundations, philanthropists and corporations ensure their philanthropic dollars go the furthest – by enabling investments in organizations and programs to be inclusive of people with disabilities. Hispanic himself, he also is heavily involved in the work of RespectAbility to serve the Latinos with disabilities community, and connecting the Latino community as a whole to inclusive philanthropy.

Prior to joining Disability Belongs™, Anderson earned his Master’s of Public Affairs in Nonprofit Management from Indiana University Bloomington. During his time in Indiana, he worked with a local environmental organization providing volunteer management and administrative support. He also held academic positions at Indiana University, worked as a grant writer at a local nonprofit, and career development office. Anderson also served as an advisor to new nonprofits to help develop their fundraising efforts. He also earned his Bachelor’s in Political Science from Eastern Michigan University, concentrating in public policy and political theory.