Headshot of June Kales

June Kailes, Disability policy consultant

June Kailes has been nationally recognized as a leader in disability policy consulting. For 45 years, she has been a writer, trainer, researcher, policy analyst, subject matter expert, and advocate in disability, accessibility, and functional needs issues. Her work converts laws and regulations into tools that help close service gaps, prevent civil rights violations, and deliver inclusive services. June has worked on policy, planning, and training issues with many state and national organizations such as several California State Departments, FEMA, the CDC, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Jacob Kean, SLP, PH.D., M. ED., University of utah

Jacob is the Director of the Population Health Sciences/UU Health Learning Health System at the University of Utah, an Associate Professor in Health System Innovation and Research, and a Research Scientist at VA Informatics and Computing Infrastructure (VINCI) at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Jacob focuses on the creation and operation of research networks and the evaluation of network care practices using patient-centered outcomes. He is the Principal Investigator of Cerebral Palsy Research Network Data Coordinating Center, Optimizing Rehabilitation Interventions, and Brain Injury Data Sharing Project, all of which focus on EHR (Electronic Health Record) learning health systems for people with acquired neurological disorders.

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Kate Lorig, MS, DrPH, Stanford university

Kate received her BS in Nursing from Boston University in 1964, her MS from the University of California San Francisco and her Doctorate in Public Health in 1980 from the University of California Berkeley. She is a faculty member at Stanford University School of Medicine. The focus of Dr. Lorig’s research has been development, evaluation of self-management programs in English and Spanish for people with chronic diseases. Programs are delivered in small groups, via mail, and via the Internet. These studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of low-cost self-management interventions in reducing symptoms and improving the quality of life.  They have also explored the role of self-efficacy as a predictor and moderator of outcomes.

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Mohan Thirumalai, PHD, University of Alabama at Birmingham (Co-Director, RecTech RERC)

Mohan is Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the Department of Health Services Administration. He is also the director of Information and Communications Technology at the UAB/Lakeshore Research Collaborative. Over the last 20 years, Mohan has researched and developed technology with the goal of improving the health and function of people with disabilities. He has specialized specifically in mobile apps, geocoding technologies and crowdsourced resources to promote community based physical activity, accessible active video gaming controllers, smart health coaching platforms with self-contained knowledge bases specific to people with disabilities, web, mobile and wearable health behavior change platforms and artificial intelligence.