Shaping Change: Disability History, Policy, & Cultural Change

Alex Green teaches political communications at Harvard Kennedy School and is a visiting fellow at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability and a visiting scholar at Brandeis University Lurie Institute for Disability Policy. He has piloted a nationally recognized disability history curriculum for high school students, developed and taught the first graduate disability policy course offered at the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Policy, and is the author of legislation to create a first-of-its-kind, disability-led human rights commission to investigate the history of state institutions for disabled people in Massachusetts. He lives outside of Boston. A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America’s Disabled is his first book.

Lisa Sonneborn (she/her) is Director, Media Arts and Culture (MAC) for the Institute on Disabilities, Temple University CEHD. Her work has engaged communities locally, nationally, and internationally in conversations around the lived experience of disability, the preservation of disability history, and cultural access. As MAC director, Lisa leads teams of artists, people with disabilities and families through the development and implementation of multi-layered cultural programming. MAC projects have served as models for inclusion, authenticity of voice, and arts accessibility. Under Lisa's direction, the Institute commissioned and produced the play A Fierce Kind of Love, which was the recipient of the ArtReach Kimmel Award for Accessible Experience. In collaboration with Built for Good, UK Lisa has supported the implementation of WatchWord technology, making live performance accessible to people who are d/Deaf or experience hearing loss. Recent projects include File/Life: We Remember Stories of Pennhurst, a multi-modal community led exploration of the archives of the Pennhurst State School and Hospital; Rhythm Bath, a dance installation designed with and for neurodiverse audiences, by Susan Marshall and Mimi Lien; and You Caught Me on Your Shoulders, a new collaboration with Kinetic Light and FringeArts (2027).

@mac_iod

Nicki Pombier is a writer, oral historian, and public artist working at the intersection of disability, language and place.

Her memoir-in-progress, Mother Tongue, traces how her son’s disabilities refracted her understanding of language, history, and belonging. Across writing, oral history projects, and public history collaborations, she explores voice beyond speech and the intimate politics of care.

Nicki’s scholarship has been recognized by the Oral History Association and The New School. From 2020–2025, she taught at Columbia University’s Oral History Master of Arts program, where she co-developed Serious Play, expanding oral history through movement, memory, and performance. She is the founding editor of Underwater New York and a longtime collaborator with Temple University’s Institute on Disabilities.

Jha D Amazi believes that the narratives upheld in our public realm should be expanded to represent, honor, and celebrate the experiences, histories, and cultures of people who have been historically denied representation in our memorial landscape.

As a Principal at MASS, Jha D leads the Public Memory and Memorials Lab, engaging communities to design projects such as the Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument Project (Chicago, IL), the Gun Violence Memorial Project (Chicago, IL; Washington D.C.; Boston, MA; Detroit, MI), and the Sugar Land 95 Cemetery Revitalization Project (Sugar Land, TX).

Beyond her contributions at MASS, Jha D is a spoken word artist, event producer, and SpaceMaker for the LGBTQ+ communities of color. In 2023, she was appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Council on Black Empowerment by Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey.

Jha D graduated with honors from Northeastern University (B.S. Arch) and the University of Pennsylvania (M. Arch I). Prior to joining MASS, she worked as a Designer at Sasaki and taught studio at the Boston Architectural College.

Regina Chen sees design as a catalyst for restoration. She brings a multidisciplinary background in architecture, engineering, planning, and research to understand how the built environment can transform the legacies of inequity into opportunities for abundance.

At MASS, Regina serves as a Senior Principal and Managing Director of Process and Learning. Since 2013, Regina has fostered a culture of learning and mutuality both at MASS and in the field at large, developing processes that champion accountability and push the bounds of design excellence. Her diverse body of work, spanning community engagement, research, narrative development, and process design, is marked by the capacity for deep listening and for guiding partners towards asking the questions that drive meaningful impact.

As the Principal-in-Charge of the Restorative Justice Design Lab and the Gun Violence Memorial Project, Regina maintains a deep commitment to community engagement and creating space for truth-telling, healing, and collective action. In 2017, she launched MASS’s Advocacy team, where she oversaw publications such as Justice is Beauty and exhibitions including Design and Healing: Creative Responses to Epidemics, jointly curated with the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Her work centers an empowering process, healing design, and a focus on training and evaluation to bring about systemic change.

Regina studied Civil Engineering and Architecture at Princeton University, and received her Master in Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Regina was a contributing writer in a recent publication, Carceral Architecture: From Within and Beyond the Prison Walls, published by Princeton University Press. Her chapter, “The Architecture of Decarceration” argues that mass incarceration is not simply a justice system failure, but the predictable outcome of how we have designed and segregated our neighborhoods. The chapter calls for redesigning neighborhoods: investing in affordable housing, social cohesion, community-based care, and culturally rooted spaces that address the social determinants of health.

Jeffrey’s personal journey as a deaf individual since birth has inspired him to create spaces that uplift the lived experience and cultural memory of the Deaf community.

Jeffrey is a Principal at MASS, where he leads the Landscape Studio with Sierra Bainbridge. He has contributed to the management and design of commemorative spaces for marginalized communities, including The Precursors—We Are Texas East Mall and the Louise B. Miller Pathways and Gardens in Washington, D.C.

As the Director of MASS’s Deaf Space and Disability Justice Lab, Jeffrey is currently studying the formation of Deaf and Disability spaces as expressions of cultural resistance.  

Jeffrey received the Ford and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Disability Futures fellowship and was a John W. Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress. He has taught design studios at the University of California Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He co-authored The Architecture of Health, which was published by the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Jeffrey holds a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Architecture from Princeton University.

Morgan O’Hara is a cultural historian of the built environment. She has worked at MASS since 2018, where she supports the Public Memory and Memorials Lab through research, engagement, and interpretation.

Her backgrounds in cultural anthropology, public history, and collaborative design have informed her approach to socio-spatial research to develop human-centered histories of built spaces and infrastructure. For the Fringe Cities project, Morgan conducted longitudinal analyses of small cities in the United States that participated in mid-century urban renewal, and while at the Hudson Valley Office, she was embedded in the public engagement work necessary to craft meaningful community design solutions in Poughkeepsie. Her passion lies in elevating creative and community-driven expressions of lesser-known histories in public space.

Morgan studied anthropology at Reed College, graduated from Columbia with a Masters in Historic Preservation, and intermittently co-teaches Studio II in Historic Preservation at Columbia GSAPP.

Wendy Andersen is the Executive Director of Common Coalition, a sister organization to the Common Senses Festival dedicated to protecting the civil rights of individuals with disabilities. A mother of three, including two children with disabilities, Wendy’s personal experiences navigating disability systems led her to a career in advocacy and community leadership. She is passionate about bringing people together, building inclusive communities, and creating meaningful change for individuals with disabilities and their families. Wendy holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from Concordia University and a Master of Arts in Exercise Physiology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Lauren started her career in New York City as a special education teacher and development coach. She received her Masters in secondary education and special education from Pace University. In her classroom, Lauren experienced first hand the lack of services and supports her students needed and deserved. Upon seeing these unmet needs, she applied for law school. In 2012, she began her career at Creighton Law School and graduated in 2015. Lauren practiced as an Assistant Public Defender (PD) in Douglas County focused on juvenile law and criminal defense. During her time as a PD she became a founding member of Education Rights Counsel (ERC) in 2017, bringing her vigor and urgency to ERC’s mission. Since 2020, she has served as the full-time Executive Director of Education Rights Counsel. In this capacity, she has grown ERC’s staff from one full time employee to seven full time employees and two contract employees, as well as, growing ERC’s budget by 90%. With the increase in capacity, ERC serves over 1,000 Nebraskans through direct representation, training, and consulting services. Under her leadership, ERC has earned the recognition of the Nebraska State Bar Association who awarded ERC with the Special Merit Award, which is presented to an organization that advances the legal profession, the administration of justice, and public interest. She was a member of the 2022 class of Ten Outstanding Young Omahans. Lauren’s experience in the education sector and juvenile court has cultivated her passion for working to improve educational outcomes and legal access for ALL children.