Meet The Governing Board

Alan Chase is currently serving as NYLN President. He is a Law Student at North Carolina Central University School of Law. He graduated from The University of North Carolina at Pembroke in 2008 with a Bachelor of Science in Special Education. Alan is an active member of the Disabled Young People’s Collective, NYLN’s NC state partner, and a member of the Governor Morehead School Alumni Association Board of Directors. He likes helping people with disabilities to be better advocates and be included in their communities. He enjoys disability law, sociology, and public policy issues. Alan likes activities in emergency management planning and educational outreach. In his free time, Alan likes to go to the beach, play video games, and spend time with his friends.

Aaron Baier currently serves as Vice President of the NYLN Governing Board and Chair of the Accessibility Committee. Aaron received his Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the State University of New York College at Cortland. Aaron continues his advocacy efforts locally as the Youth Transition / Work Readiness Coordinator for Access to Independence of Cortland County, Inc. In addition to running the agency’s Youth Transition and Peer Mentoring Programs, Aaron conducts outreach presentations and training opportunities throughout the community and collaborates with area agencies, businesses, and school districts to provide education and employment services. Aaron is a member of Youth Power!, NYLN’s NY state partner.

Eleanor Canter is currently serving as NYLN’s Secretary & Treasurer. She is a proud person with a disability. She works at the National Council on Independent Living. She is an editor and designer. She has a degree in philosophy. She worked for two years at the Center for Independent Living. She was a community organizer. Eleanor likes writing about disability rights. She is into bioethics which is the study of morals in medicine. She’s interested in disability law and the future of the independent living movement.

Chelsea Tobin Paulson is currently serving as NYLN’s Public Outreach Committee chair. grew up on a farm in South Dakota where she inherited her love for outdoors. Along serving her term as Governing Board member, Paulson is a graduate of Augustana College with two degrees in Deaf Education and Elementary Education. Chelsea was the former National Association of the Deaf Miss Deaf America 2006-2008. She also was very involved with Youth Leadership Forum since she arrived in 2004 until 2008. She also just got married in May of 2009 to her high school sweetheart, Jared Paulson. They reside in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Chelsea is teacher and is being called Mrs. Paulson by her students. She is currently seeking for a teaching job.

Cynthia “Cindy” A. Singletary is NYLN’s Advocacy Committee Chair. She is an Independent Living Specialist at LIFE (Living Independence For Everyone) of Mississippi, a center for independent living. She has been with LIFE for five years. She is also a part-time student at the University of Southern Mississippi with a major in English and a minor in Spanish. She plans to continue to law school after completing her Bachelor’s degree. She hopes to become a civil attorney. Cindy also serves on multiple boards and councils. In addition serving as NYLN Advocacy Committee Chair, she holds leadership positions in the Community Partnership Advisory Council for the Institute of Disabilities Studies (IDS) and the Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center Board of Directors. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends.

Amy Doherty is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College. She is currently a research assistant at Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston, MA working to develop devices and technologies to help people with vision impairments. Amy is passionate about helping people with disabilities reach their full potential. In 2008, she served as the Chair of the National Council on Disability Youth Advisory Committee. In her spare time Amy enjoys traveling, knitting, and spending time with friends and family. Amy is honored to serve on the NYLN Governing Board.

Christian Borrero is an advocate living in Cleveland Ohio where he has lived all his life. He is Latino and was born with Cerebral Palsy. He has been through some tough things but is now living on his own and is attending college in the spring. He work for United Cerebral Palsy at Fifth Third Bank. He loves to bake, write poetry, and make a difference in people lives.

Danielle Fellguth is 16 years old and lives in California. She is interested in leadership and has been a peer tutor at her high school, attended mutiple leadership conferences, including the National Youth Leaders State Conference (NYLSC) and the Student Advisory Board on Education (SABE). Danielle is especially interested in disability advocacy and is a co-chair of Kids As Self Advocates’ (KASA’s) National Advisory Board. In addition to leadership and advocacy, Danielle throughly enjoys dance- she has been dancing since the age of seven and has been a student of and performed with AXIS Dance Company. She also is in love with musicals, especially Wicked, and theater in generally both as an active participant and an audience member. So far, she has been in two productions of the Marsh Youth Theater (MYT): Fears of Your Life directed by Kim Epifano and The Wave directed by Cliff Mayotte. She hopes that her passion for advocacy and the arts will stay with her throughout her many journeys in life.

Emily Kronenberger is new to the NYLN Governing Board and is currently a graduate student in the Master of Public Health program at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, where she is concentrating her studies on disability issues, public policy, and reproductive health. Before returning to school full-time, Emily worked first as a Legislative Associate, and then as a Policy Analyst, at the Alliance for the Betterment of Citizens with Disabilities (ABCD) from 2006 to 2009, where she tracked and analyzed state and federal policies that impact people with disabilities and their families. She is the founder of New Wave Grrrl, an information and resource sharing blog for women with a special focus on health policy, advocacy, sexuality, and women with disabilities. Emily is a self-admitted “political junkie” and enjoys advocating for the rights of young people.

Marneet Lewis is a junior at Concordia University studying Psychology. In 2008 she earned her Associate’s Degree from Portland Community College. While attending PCC she was a Student Ambassador, Founder & President of The ABLE Club (Affirming Beyond Limits Effectively) for Students with Disabilities, President of United Tribes and Black Student Union, and a member of the Psychology Club. She served as a 2009 paid summer intern in the Bureau of Land Management’s Branch of Geographic Sciences as a Step Cartographer Technician. In summer 2008 she was selected as 1 of 8 college students nationally in the MEAF-AAPD paid Congressional Internship Program in Washington D.C. where she served in the late Senior Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s (D-MA) office of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP). Marneet is also a percussionist and enjoys taking drumming enrichment classes in the community.

Jeremiah Swisher is 19 years old and will turn 20 years old in May of 2010. He is a disability activist and advocate. He has autism. He want to make this year even better as a NYLN Governing Board member. He lives in Glendale, Wisconsin where he is a Freshman at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater with the class of 2013. He serves on the Board of Directors for Independence First, a Center for Independent Living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is also on the board for the Family Assistance Center for Education, Training and Support (WI Facets). He occasionally works as a motivational speaker and likes to celebrate people’s ability by working with other people with disabilities who are advocating for themselves.

Savannah Logsdon-Breakstone started advocacy work at age 12, when her mother got her involved with conference panels, but it didn’t become her passion until she turned 19. Her current involvements also include Director of Advocacy for Autism Women’s Network, Pa’s OMHSAS Youth committee, Pa Families Inc., Youth Outreach Union, as well as a freelance advocate. She currently lives with her 3 cats and her Dachshund in rural PA. She is a blogger an active part of the Neurodiversity/ Autistic Self Advocate Movement. Outside of advocacy, Savannah’s interests include Anthropology, Social Histories, Victorian Romanticism, and the Histories of Oppressed populations.

Trevor Buehler currently lives in the Edmonds/Lynnwood area of Washington state. He lives with his mom and his grandparents. He is active with his state’s People First organization, which is an organization for people with disabilities who live in Washington that helps them learn about their rights, advocacy, leadership, their own greatness, and self-determination. He used to work as a janitor for part time at the Northshore Pool in Bothell, WA, but is now working as a janitor for full time in Everett, WA. He went to his state’s Youth Leadership Forum during the summer of 2007 and was a peer counselor in 2008. He is also a board member for Disability Rights of Washington’s Disability Advisory Council (DAC).

Xenofon Alexander Vakalopoulos is a college graduate from Beacon College with a Bachelor’s in Human Services and a minor in Psychology. He currently works for the Department of Energy. His goal is to secure a job either in the public or private sector that is dedicated to advocating and providing support for people with disabilities to achieve independence in their lives. He has served as a delegate for Maryland, Washington, D.C. and nationally on NYLN. Since my status as a delegate I have served as a student leader at several summer NYLN conferences and other activities. He is presently on the Board of Directors at Independence Now, a Center for Independent Living that is dedicated to assisting individuals with disabilities through housing, education, and employment.