The Team
Disrupting the Cycle is committed to bringing together people with IDD, their care partners, providers, and advocates to develop a culturally affirming model of supports that addresses the needs of this diverse community. The Disrupting the Cycle team is a true partnership between UNC researchers, co-researchers, and community partners. We are currently developing emerging partnerships in preparation for future stages of this research.
UNC Researchers
We are university researchers, self-advocates and family advocates, practitioners with experience working with people with IDD in community settings, legislators, and people with lived experience as care partners of children (including adult children) with IDD.
Co-Researchers
We partnered directly with minoritized young adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) and caregivers. Co-researchers dialogued around health care experiences, mapped their stories, and developed suggestions for community providers.
Community Partners
Community practitioners and other stakeholders identified themes in their experiences supporting minoritized young adults with IDD, including perceptions of barriers. Community partners engaged in dialogue and narrative construction with the larger research team.
UNC Researchers
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Dr. Johnson is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also serves as an affiliate research faculty member at the Virginia Commonwealth University Center for Cultural Experiences in Prevention in Richmond, Virginia. Dr. Johnson’s clinical experience as an occupational therapist working with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities has shaped her research interests in the pursuit of justice for those who are often forgotten in the healthcare system. Dr. Johnson has been recognized for her contributions working with and for the IDD community as the recipient of the 2021 MLK Unsung Hero Award. She is also a recipient of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Equity Scholars for Action Award, which funds this project. |
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Kierra is a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. Her dissertation work focuses on exploring the complexities of meaningful occupations by examining the occupation of student activism. She is interested in working towards an equitable and accessible society through her research endeavors. |
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Seth is a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. He is interested in exploring occupational choice, identity, and community as it relates to identity and justice in society. |
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As a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, Becky is interested in how the construct of race is learned and reinforced through personal and community-based occupations. More broadly, she is interested in how occupation is negotiated of systemic institutional racism and how this does not translate to health and wellbeing. She hopes to directly address racism and disrupt social inequities in healthcare and beyond. |
Co-Researchers
We partnered directly with co-researchers, including minoritized young adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) and caregivers. Co-researchers shared narratives around health care experiences, mapped their stories geographically, and developed suggestions for community partners.
Community Partners
Through the research process, community partners identified themes in their experiences supporting minoritized young adults with IDD, including perceptions of barriers. Community partners engaged in dialogue and narrative construction with the larger research team.
We continue to engage community partners in this work. If you would like to be involved with Disrupting the Cycle, please contact us.
Emerging Partnerships
Dr. Baiyina W. Muhammad is co-founder of the North Carolina Black Disabilities Network and organizer of its inaugural conference on race and disabilities, which took place in April 2022. The North Carolina Black Disabilities Network, considered among the first of its kind in the U.S. Southeast, transforms systems that serve Black people in North Carolina with disabilities. The network, guided by individuals and families throughout the state, is working to develop a resource center, establish training for school districts and employers, and produce scholarship about the intersection of Blackness and disability. The North Carolina Black Disabilities Conference, in conjunction with the network, brings together seemingly disparate groups – academics, service providers, and practitioners – together with Black disabled communities to illuminate the intersections of race and disability. Dr. Muhammad is associate professor of history at North Carolina Central University. She teaches courses on the Black experience and the history of women and courses that explore race, class, gender, and religion.
Dr. Victoria Chibuogu Nneji founded AKALAKA, a social venture working to create a caring digital community. AKALAKA works toward digital solutions enabling care partners to sustain timely, thoughtful, and delightful long-term care for family and friends to live longer, healthier lives at home and in their communities of choice. The North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities has invested in AKALAKA to establish and maintain an organized network of developmental disabilities advocacy leaders: the North Carolina Advocacy Leaders Network.
Dr. Nneji has been an engineer and entrepreneur in the tech industry for 14 years and has spent the last 5 years specializing in robotics, transportation and human-systems engineering. Her work has included airline, railroad, and future on-demand autonomous air taxi operations. Dr. Nneji earned her PhD in Duke University’s robotics program as a research lead in the Humans & Autonomy Lab.