Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of AUTONOMY is made up of activists, clinicians and researchers who are concerned with issues facing the disability community.
Marvin Wasserman
is a
recently retired Senior Parole Officer for New York
State, who now considers himself a Full Time
Disability Issues Activist. He has already fought
for disability rights, for many years, with his
wife, the late Sandra Schnur. He has focused on the
acceptance and needs of persons with disabilities in
the workplace, and on their inclusion in the
political process, at both state and national
levels.
Karen Hwang, Ed.D., is a counseling psychologist and an editorial journalist who has participated in several national debates concerning the rights of persons with disabilities.
Louis Hall, who stayed on from the original AUTONOMY Board, is a noted Oregon disability rights activist.
Alan Toy, Associate Director of the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, is also an accomplished actor in motion pictures and television, and is Secretary of the new AUTONOMY Board.
Paul Spiers, Ph.D., is a Forensic Neuropsychologist who conducts research at MIT and is an Associate Professor at the Boston University School of Medicine. He is
Chairman of the new AUTONOMY Board and before joining AUTONOMY was President of the Board of End-of-Life Choices, now Compassion & Choices.
James Werth, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology at The University of Akron, who is an authority on HIV and end-of-life research.
Cornelius Baker is the former Executive Director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, and before that of the National Association of People with AIDS, both in Washington, DC.
Most of the Board are wheelchair users or have a physical disability. AUTONOMY speaks
for persons with disabilities who believe that the principle of choice and self-determination embodied in the Americans with Disabilities Act must be extended to all arenas of life, including choice and control at the end of life.
To read more about each of AUTONOMY’s Directors, follow the links.
Founders
Andrew "Drew" Batavia and Hugh Gregory Gallagher both recently passed away. Drew in 2003 and Hugh in 2004. They
are both be sorely missed by the Disability Community at large, but especially by those of us associated with AUTONOMY.
Andrew I. Batavia, J.D., M.S., (1957 - 2003) served as President and Chairman of AUTONOMY. He was an associate professor at Florida International University and a former White House Fellow. He had also served as the executive director of the National Council on Disability, special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General, legislative assistant to U.S. Senator John McCain, counsel to a major law firm, and senior staff member of the White House Domestic Policy Council. While serving in the Justice Department, he helped to draft the regulations for implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). He published two books and over 50 articles concerning disability issues. Drew was a person with quadriplegia, due to a spinal cord injury in 1973. He resided in Miami Beach, Florida.
Hugh Gregory Gallagher, Ph.D. (Hon.), M.A. (Oxon), (1932 – 2004) served as President of AUTONOMY following Drew’s death. Hugh was a pioneer of the disability rights / independent living movement. He conceived and drafted the language of the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968, the first major civil rights legislation for people with disabilities. A writer and a disability historian, Hugh was the author of FDR's Splendid Deception, By Trust Betrayed, and Black Bird Fly Away: Disabled in an Able Bodied World. In 1999, he was awarded the coveted Betts Award for lifetime achievement in the cause of disability rights.
