Team

Sam Crane

Sam Crane, JD (she/they), is Communication FIRST’s Director of Policy & Legal Advocacy. She is an attorney and disability advocate with over ten years of policy advocacy experience and is licensed to practice law in Washington, DC. Sam’s advocacy work has included promoting access to communication-related supports, long-term supports and services, and supported decision-making as an alternative to guardianship. She served two terms on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), where she advocated for improved research on and access to services that meaningfully improve quality of life for autistic people across a wide range of support needs. She has previously served as Legal and Policy Director at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), Legal Director at Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities in DC, and as an independent consultant. Sam graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude and earned a Bachelor of Arts with high honors at Swarthmore College, where she focused on developmental linguistics. She also completed a research assistantship at the University of Pennsylvania, focusing on the role of attention in language learning. Currently, Sam serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and on the Board of Not Dead Yet. Sam relies primarily on speech to communicate.

Shonda McLaughlin

Shonda McLaughlin has over twenty years of experience and training in the disability field. Growing up in rural South Georgia, Shonda dealt with many attitudinal and physical barriers due to her own experience with disability. She graduated with her PhD in Rehabilitation Research and Education from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. She has worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs as a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor. She developed a mentoring program, a Veterans’ resource center, and a Veterans’ club. In other agencies and organizations, she has been Acting Chief of Quality Assurance and Federal Compliance; Professor; Director and Coordinator of Graduate and Undergraduate Rehabilitation Programs; and Programs Manager of National Leadership and Mentoring. She also served on the Statewide Independent Living Council of Oklahoma.

Mike Volkman

Mike joined Not Dead Yet at its inception in 1996. He had been on the staff of the Capital District Center for Independence in Albany, New York, and later was on the Board of Directors. He has written op-ed columns for his local newspaper, the Times Union, and remains a tireless advocate for the rights of people with disabilities.

Horacio Esparza

Horacio Esparza has been the Executive Director of Progress Center for Independent Living since 2008, after serving in other positions there since 1999. He also produces and hosts the first radio show in the country dedicated to disability rights, culture and the independent living philosophy. The radio show “Vida Independiente” (“Independent Living”) is transmitted live every Saturday morning from 9am to noon on WNTD 950 AM and on streaming live audio around the world at www.radiovidaindependiente.com; the first hour is in English followed by two hours in Spanish.

Horacio Esparza is a highly sought speaker on the subject of people with disabilities at the local, national and international level. Recent speaking engagements include presentations at annual conferences at the ISPALMER held in Bayomon, Puerto Rico, the National Council on Independent Living in Washington, D.C., and Fiesta Educativa in California.

Horacio Esparza was born in the city of Zacatecas, México, studied at the school for the blind in the City of Guadalajara, Jalisco and went on to earn his Bachelor’s degree in Hispanic-American Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He also received a degree in philosophy from the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, Jalisco. Horacio is a member of the Illinois Statewide Hispanic Council and an active participant in the Immigrants with Disabilities Rights Project. He is a recipient of the 2006 William F. Lynch Award from the Guild for the Blind.

Horacio is a long time member of Not Dead Yet, participating in a Chicago protest at a Final Exit Network conference, and representing NDY in national and local Spanish media coverage of the assisted suicide issue.

Germaine Martin

Germaine Martin is a Black non-binary female lesbian and has multiple disabilities. She has a BA in political science, and minored in mathematics. She started the first Disabled Student Union at Wright State University, and was involved in student government. She also served as Vice President on the council of her apartment building at Wright State. Germaine taught computer skills to people with disabilities at United Rehabilitation. She was later trapped in a nursing home for four years and fought to get herself out till she succeeded. She lives in Dayton, Ohio and has continued to fight for home and community based services and assist others to get out of institutional settings.

Lydia Nunez Landry

Lydia Nunez Landry is a disability rights advocate living in Houston, Texas. Her advocacy work centers on the rights and safety of institutionalized disabled and older people. Serving formerly as a certified volunteer long-term care ombudsman, Lydia has been witness to the often devastating effects caused by segregation in nursing homes. She wrote a Chapter entitled “Chronic Illness, Well-being, and Social Values” in Routledge’s 2022 The Disability Bioethics Reader. She is a Commissioner on the Houston Commission on Disabilities and a Rev-Up representative. Lydia graduated magna cum laude from University of Houston-Clear Lake with a degree in social work—her activism draws on years of study in disability, critical race, queer, and feminist theories and how they relate in various ways to economic inequality. As a disabled mother of two, Lydia champions the rights of disabled parents and those who want to be parents. She is also a member of ADAPT, assisting with social media outreach, disability rights education, and political action in the Houston area. Lydia was born and raised in rural Louisiana along the Gulf Coast and volunteered in various capacities after hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Ike, and Harvey, most recently by helping to coordinate rescues and the delivery of vital medicine, food, and water to those stranded by encroaching waters.

Amy E. Hasbrouck

Amy E. Hasbrouck has been a disability rights activist for more than 30 years. Ms. Hasbrouck’s activism combines her personal experience with congenital and acquired disability with a cross-oppression analysis gained through involvement in the women’s rights, anti-war, LGBT, and other social justice movements. She worked in architectural access and the independent living movement before graduating from Northeastern University School of Law in 1997. Her subsequent legal work focused on health and mental health law and implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ms. Hasbrouck has focused her writing and research skills on abuse of children and adults with disabilities, producing a groundbreaking report on prosecution and sentencing of parents who kill their disabled children in 1997. This study led to her involvement with Not Dead Yet, the disability rights-based opposition to assisted suicide, euthanasia, and other “end-of-life” practices that discriminate against people with disabilities which continues to this day. Ms. Hasbrouck is currently a board member of Not Dead Yet in the U.S., and Director of Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet, a project of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities to expand the reach of CCD’s ending of life ethics committee. She lives with her husband in Québec, Canada.