Go Big Read: Panel on Disability!

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Join us for the 2024-2025 Go Big Read: Panel on Disability! In collaboration with the Go Big Read program, Madison Central Public Library is hosting a panel on disability and accessibility in the community. Topics to be discussed include transportation, housing, employment, and accessible infrastructure. The panel will be moderated by the City of Madison's Disability Rights & Services Specialist, Rebecca Hoyt, and the panel will have representation from the City of Madison’s Disability Rights Commission, Access to Independence, UW-Madison, and more. 

CART Captioning will be available. Please email the UW-Madison Go Big Read Coordinator (bwillig@wisc.edu) with any questions or accommodation needs.

This event will also be hosted virtually through Zoom; more information will be emailed to you upon registration. Zoom is a free video platform, and you can watch on a browser, through the free mobile app for ios or android, or call in to participate by voice only. Registration is requested and will ask you to indicate if you will be attending in-person or virtually.

Panel Members:  

Brelynn Bille (she/her/hers) is a current Master of Public Affairs candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and holds a bachelor's degree in Community and Nonprofit Leadership. As a first-generation university student, having a disability on campus has introduced additional and unexpected barriers, bringing her to more routine activism in college. Partaking in activism independently and as a member of the Disability Cultural Center Coalition, Brelynn uses her knowledge and enjoyment of public policy as a vehicle for her work on campus. Through her work with the National Disability Mentoring Coalition, she has worked with a cohort to build a student activism guide for other universities to use to build these community spaces for disabled students. As an intern for the U.S. Department of State under the Special Advisor of International Disability Rights, Brelynn has helped with projects relating to areas all over the world, as well as a domestic roundtable of leaders in the technology industry to share strategies and resources that will expand digital accessibility. 

Emmett Lockwood (he/they) is a senior at the University of Wisconsin - Madison majoring in Political Science and Gender and Women’s Studies with minors in American Indian and Indigenous Studies and the Integrated Studies of Science, Engineering, and Society. Lockwood is a Disability Justice practitioner and self-advocate passionate about public policy, critical access - especially in rural and indigenous communities. Lockwood was a member of the UW-Madison Disability Cultural Coalition, which successfully won a DCC on UW-Madison's campus in 2023, and has served in various  leadership roles at the Associated Students of Madison. Lockwood is a student researcher at both the University of Wisconsin - Madison and the University of Michigan where they conduct research around how capitalism has complicated legal definitions of disability and who is entitled to protection under the A.D.A., and in open source research methodologies in Disability Studies. Lockwood works on UW-Madison's campus as a multiply disabled, queer and transgender student. Lockwood ha salso previously served as an intern for Senator Bernie Sanders, the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, LINK Houston, and the Department of Health Services for the State of Wisconsin. 

Miso Kwak is a PhD student in Special Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Informed by her own lived experience as a blind student and educator, she is interested in better understanding how young disabled people think about and engage with disability identity and self-advocacy. In her spare time, Miso enjoys running, watching cooking shows, and playing and listening to music. 

Wendy Weiler is an accessibility advocate recognized for her work both nationally and throughout Wisconsin. Wendy was injured in a motor vehicle accident in 1990 and sustained a spinal cord injury.  As a full-time wheelchair user, her passion for addressing the challenges and inequities faced by people with disabilities has driven her work as a disability and inclusion consultant for the past three decades. Wendy’s work includes All Wheels Up (to address inaccessible air travel), Access to Independence, Beyond Compliance Taskforce, the Wisconsin Arts Board Accessibility Committee, Madison Youth Choirs, among others. She holds degrees in biology and business, and earned a law degree from Marquette University.  Wendy has held positions in business law & ethics education, travel & living cost consultancy, and technical science services.  

As an avid adventurer and lifelong learner, Wendy enjoys traveling around the globe with her husband and two daughters. She resides in beautiful south central Wisconsin

Nicki Vander Meulen is a 45 year old attorney, Wisconsin Disability Policy fellow, and a Madison Metropolitian School District School Board member. When Nicki was elected to the school board in 2017, she became the first openly autistic school board member in the United States. On the board she has fought to make MMSD more inclusive, reduce seclusion and restraint, and improve outcomes for all marginalized communities. Nicki has made it her mission in life to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves.