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Meet the Disability & Philanthropy Forum Team

Our Team

Noor is a lightly tanned Palestinian woman. She is pictured smiling against a navy blue background and looking directly at the camera. Her brown hair is pulled into a ponytail with a strip of white down the center. She is wearing gold rimmed circular glasses, dangling cow earrings with a bell attached, and a navy blue blazer.

Noor Al-Ahmadi

Noor Al-Ahmadi (she/her) is the Director of Memberships & Operations for the Disability & Philanthropy forum. Before joining DPF, Noor was the Operations Coordinator for Programs at Youth Rise Texas, a non-profit in Austin, TX dedicated to uplifting the voices of youth impacted by parental removal through incarceration and deportation. As a disabled Palestinian American, Noor is unrelenting in her vision for a post-abolition world aligned with disability justice.

Noor’s belief in abolition led to co-founding “Lasting Empowerment for Teen Success”, a non-profit in Austin whose mission was to empower incarcerated youth by providing creative outlets, fostering self-worth, and building sustainable support systems in their community. The relationships she built through community organizing and art encouraged her to work with ATX Interfaces, a community initiative that nurtures and amplifies marginalized artists, as Accessibility Director.

Noor graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor’s in Sociology and a degree in Arabic & Journalism. Noor is a published poet and spends her time growing her relationships in Austin, Texas in order to fulfill her dream of creating inclusive arts and music spaces for folks with disabilities and other accessibility needs.

A headshot of a white woman with brown wavy hair just beyond her shoulders. The background is light gray. She is wearing clear framed glasses, a nose ring stud, and has on a black blouse. She is smiling.

Megan Cook

Megan Cook (she/her) is the Membership & Operations Senior Associate for the Disability & Philanthropy forum. Megan brings over eight years of experience in the nonprofit sector, where she’s worn many hats in fundraising, communications, operations, and programs. She began as a grant writer for organizations across the South. Most recently, she spent five years in philanthropy as the Programs & Operations Manager for the Rx Foundation.

Megan loves big-picture strategy and hands-on operations. Over her career, she has designed programs, created more accessible grant applications, and wrote an operations manual for nearly every place she’s worked at. As a self-proclaimed nerd for good ops and a disabled person, she is thrilled to combine her skills and personal passion for disability justice into one role at DPF.

Megan graduated with a BA in Sociology from Smith College. She’s often reading, baking, or making art, all in the close company of cherished family, friends, and community.

Latina woman with shoulder length dark brown hair, dark brown eyes with black rimmed glasses and a big smile wearing a cobalt blue blouse and black blazer. She is standing in front of a light aqua glass door.

Gladis Herst

Gladis Herst (she/her) is the Engagement and Learning Services Associate at the Disability & Philanthropy Forum. Prior to working at the Forum, Gladis worked in higher education and international affairs. During this time she worked with international and immigrant students and international fellows. As a person with intersecting identities, Gladis is excited to focus her work on Disability Justice. 

Gladis holds a Master of Public Administration from Illinois Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Beloit College. Gladis lives in Chicago where she enjoys spending time with family and friends, going on hikes, and engaging in community activism.

Photo taken by Adrian O. Walker. Sandy Ho is sitting outside against a wall in a power wheelchair. She’s wearing a long sleeved white shirt, yellow pants, and brown shoes with a silver buckle. She has short dark wavy hair, and she is smiling at the camera.

Sandy Ho

Sandy Ho began as the Executive Director of the Disability & Philanthropy Forum in June 2024. She was most recently the program director of the Disability Inclusion Fund (DIF) at Borealis Philanthropy. Prior to her role in philanthropy, Sandy was a disability policy researcher at the Community Living Policy Center at Brandeis University. She was a member of the inaugural 2023 Obama Foundation USA Leaders program, and a 2022 Disability Futures Fellow supported by Ford Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

She is a co-partner of the Access is Love campaign that she leads with Alice Wong and Mia Mingus. In 2016 Sandy founded the Disability & Intersectionality Summit, a national biennial conference that is organized by disabled activists and highlights the lived-experiences of marginalized disabled people of color. Sandy was recognized by the White House in 2015 as a “Champion of Change.” She comes to disability community organizing and activism by way of youth mentoring for young women with disabilities. Sandy came to the DIF in 2021, and helmed a $4 Million annual grantmaking strategy for disabled-led organizations building power to dismantle ableism across the U.S. At the DIF she spearheaded Joy Grants, and the launch of the $1 Million DIFxTech Fund, further expanding pathways to inclusion and thriving disability futures. Sandy is a visionary whose commitment to disability communities and grassroots organizing centrally inform her values within and beyond philanthropy. Core to her values is the belief in disability justice, rights, and inclusion as powerful tools and ways of being that are essential to all social movements and civil sectors.

She earned her Master in Public Policy from The Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Sandy lives in Oakland, CA where she can be found birding, reading by Lake Merritt, and spending time with her communities.  

A white woman with dark blonde hair flowing behind her, smiling, wearing a black shirt.

Sarah Napoli

Sarah Napoli (she/her) is the Learning Services Director at the Disability and Philanthropy Forum. From 2019-2023, she acted as the lead disability inclusion project officer within the people and culture Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity team at Open Society Foundations (OSF), where she developed and facilitated disability inclusion learning and embedded proactive disability inclusive practices throughout the global network. In addition to OSF, she has over 20 years of experience teaching and conducting training on social justice and advocacy in higher education and nonprofits, most recently as the director for the inaugural Center for Inclusion at Manhattanville College and as the assistant head of Goodricke College at the University of York, England. She specializes in facilitating engaging workshops and designing curriculum that challenge and encourage participants to foster a culture of inclusion. 

She holds two MA degrees, one in social justice in intercultural relations from the SIT graduate institute and one in applied human rights from the University of York.. She identifies as a proud disabled person and enjoys chatting about Geek culture—all things fantasy and sci/fi and her former life as a hip hop researcher and dancer. Her research on how hip hop creates human rights identities was recently published in the University of Michigan press text, For the Culture: Hip Hop and the Fight for Social Justice. 

She has conducted workshops and training all over the USA and in the world, including Japan, Guatemala, throughout Europe, South Africa, and Canada. Click here to read Sarah’s story, “The Disabled Mindset: Embracing My Disability Identity.”

Razz is a Black woman with brown skin and long black marley twists pulled into a big bun on the top of her head. She's standing in front of a blue and white abstract painting of a tree wearing a black sweater with the word "kindness" stacked in red and pink.

Razz Sharpless

Razz Sharpless (she/her) is the Training and Learning Services Associate for the Disability & Philanthropy forum. Razz’s career has spanned several industries, including criminal justice, violence prevention, higher education, outdoor recreation, and philanthropy. Her philanthropic career has included serving as Individual Philanthropy Coordinator at the Trevor Project and fundraising for Safe Alliance. She graduated from Appalachian State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice.

Ivory Taylor

Ivory Taylor (she/her) is the Deputy Director at the Disability & Philanthropy Forum. Ivory is a disabled and bicultural Palestinian American leader and community builder. Most recently, she served as Associate Director of the Housing Justice Center, where she created the Radical Belonging in Housing Justice cohort to strengthen solidarity between disability and housing justice movements. Throughout her nearly decade-long career in housing justice, she helped advance landmark policy victories and tenant-led campaigns that strengthened tenant protections, preserved affordable housing, and expanded housing stability across Minnesota.

Rooted in her lived experiences and years of community organizing, Ivory’s work is grounded in a deep belief in the leadership and wisdom of those most impacted. She is a co-founder of Amplify MN: A Disability Justice Collective and serves as an Access Mentor with the Bush Foundation, partnering with philanthropy to advance understanding about disability identity, culture, access, and allyship.

Throughout her work, Ivory has sought to build organizations, relationships, and communities rooted in belonging, interdependence, and shared power. A systems thinker and relationship builder, she is known for translating complex issues into accessible ideas, centering lived experience, and asking thoughtful questions that help communities build more just and inclusive futures.

Her leadership and community organizing have been recognized by the Minnesota House of Representatives, the City of Minneapolis, and community organizations across the Twin Cities. She earned her Master of Social Work in Community Practice and human rights minor from the University of Minnesota, where she was also selected as a Diversity of Views and Experiences Fellow. In her free time, she can often be found attending concerts, traveling, and searching thrift stores for vintage treasures.