Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia;Dr Schnellert’s scholarship attends to how teachers and teaching and learners and learning can mindfully embrace student diversity and inclusive education. His community-based collaborative work contributes a counterargument to top-down approaches that operate from deficit models, instead drawing from communities’ funds of knowledge to build participatory, place-conscious, and culturally sustaining practices. Dr. Schnellert has been a middle and secondary school classroom teacher and a learning resource teacher in K-12. His books, films and research articles are widely referenced in local, national and international contexts.

Center on Forced Displacement, Boston University;Dr. Wanjagua’s research heavily emphasizes co-producing knowledge and "inclusive research where individuals with intellectual disabilities are actively trained and employed as co-researchers rather than just subjects of study. Her primary areas of interest include Indigenous research frameworks and decolonizing disability studies in the Global South; Evaluating the family quality of life and support systems for caregivers in rural communities; and Assessing the impacts of major disruptions (like COVID-19) on individuals with IDD and their families. She completed her PhD at the University of Illinois 2024.

School of Social Work at UBC Okanagan and UBC Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship;Dr. Rachelle Hole is a Professor in the School of Social Work at UBC Okanagan, Co-Director of the UBC Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship, and a Tier 1 Principal’s Research Chair in Critical Disability Studies. Her work focuses on improving the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families. She collaborates closely with people with lived experience, families, community organizations, and governments to support inclusion, self-determination, and meaningful participation in community life.

McGaw YMCA Children's Center;Courtney Krueger, is from Evanston, Illinois. She lives in her own condo with her boyfriend Aaron. She has worked for 15 years at the Mcgaw YMCA Children's center as an associate teacher with infants and toddlers. In her spare time, she is a Special OIympics athlete leader and health messenger, running track and field, doing shot put, and the 1500-meter race. She also plays tennis. She has been to Washington D.C. to speak about health and fitness to different senators and legislators to get different laws passed, and has been a co-researcher for inclusive research projects for the last six years. She has helped write papers and have given presentations about research.

Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois, Chicago;Lieke van Heumen is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois Chicago. She received both her undergraduate and master degrees in psychology with a specialization in gerontology from the Radboud University in the Netherlands. Lieke then worked as a psychologist in five group homes for people with intellectual disabilities in the Netherlands. She completed her PhD in Disability Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago in 2015. She was a 2019–2020 American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow and Health and Aging Policy Fellow, placed with the U.S Senate Special Committee on Aging in the Office of Ranking Member Senator Bob Casey. Lieke’s research interests include aging of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, inclusive research methodology, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She is a fellow of AAIDD (the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities).