About Emma

Emma (she/her) is an access worker dedicated to guiding the accessibility of cultural experiences. She is passionate about fostering cross-disability solidarity, supporting accessible community engagement opportunities, and strategizing with a disability justice framework. Her lived experience with disability, both as a disabled person and care partner, has influenced her approach to anti-ableist projects and community building.

Emma is a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) with the International Association of Access Professionals and has worked with organizations such as the Museum of Modern Art, The Phillips Collections, The Shed, The Urban Institute, Art Enables, The Arc, and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History and Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Emma is originally from Buffalo, New York, born to Jewish and Puerto-Rican family. Her first experiences with disability come from being an older sister to her sister with Down syndrome. Her mom, a vocational counselor at the National Technical Insitute for the Deaf (NTID), taught her ASL from a very young age and exposed her to the Deaf community in Rochester. She then moved around the country with her family, developing roots with disabled communities in Jackson, Mississippi, Naples, Florida, and Toledo, Ohio before going to college in Washington, D.C.

In D.C., Emma earned her Master’s Degree in Public Anthropology, with certificates in Disability Studies and Community-Based Research. She became deeply involved in the disability community as a self-advocate after being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and connective tissue disorders. Her Master’s thesis, an autoethnographic study about self-identity with artists with disabilities, demonstrates how anti-capitalist decolonial anthropological practices and disability justice frameworks legitimatize disability expertise as enacted knowledge specific to disabled people, acquired through life experience in non-normative bodyminds.

Since earning her degree, Emma has worked at museum institutions interested in engaging the disabled public. At the National Museum of American History, Emma worked with disabled activist Judy Heumann to archive her life as part of the history of disability collection. At the Smithsonian American Art Museum, she coordinated and created accessibility resources for the Musical Thinking exhibition, and collaborated in partnership with Gallaudet University’s Motion Light Lab to engage local Deaf communities with the exhibition.

She currently works as the Coordinator of Access Programs and Initiatives at the Museum of Modern Art, contributing to making the Museum more accessible to disabled independent visitors and public program attendees. She is also a freelance access worker and consultant with organizations looking to implement accessibility and disability inclusion initiatives.