President, AJ Link (he/him)
aj.link@cripthelaw.org
AJ Link (he/him) is openly autistic. He received his JD from The George Washington University Law School and his LL.M in Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. He was the inaugural director of The Center for Air and Space Law Task Force on Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in Aerospace and is an adjunct professor of space law at Howard University School of Law.
AJ serves as a research director for the Jus Ad Astra project, the Accessibility Team Lead for AstroAccess, the Space Law and Policy Chair for Black in Astro and is a cofounder of the Palestine Space Institute.
He is the founding president of the National Disabled Law Students Association and the National Disabled Legal Professionals Association. AJ also works as a policy analyst for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and was previously a fellow at For All Moonkind’s Ethics Institute.
AJ is the chairperson of the board of the JustSpace Alliance as well as the chair of The Potter’s House DC, a nonprofit bookstore. He is also a commissioner on the American Bar Association Commission on Disability Rights. He is the 2020 recipient of the Michael Dillon Cooley Memorial Award, a 2020 inductee of the Susan M. Daniels Disability Mentoring Hall of Fame, and the first ever winner of the Above Space Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award.
AJ continues to be actively involved in local, national, and international social justice movements and serves on several advisory boards and steering committees that focus on building a better future.
Secretary, Jordan Berger (she/her)
jberger@cripthelaw.org
Jordan Berger is a dedicated advocate and disabled lawyer based in Seattle, Washington. She graduated from NYU School of Law, in 2020. Jordan was part of the first group that took the Bar Exam remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, she advocated for equitable conditions for disabled test-takers.
Jordan is a co-founder of the National Disabled Law Students Association and the National Disabled Legal Professionals Association. Currently, she serves as an Associate at Terrell Marshall, where she focuses on plaintiff-side class action litigation. Her previous experience includes serving as a judicial law clerk in the Western District of Washington and working as a Skadden Fellow at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice.
Board Member, April Dawson Rawlings (she/her)
April is a rising 2E at McGeorge School of Law. For work, she is the executive director of the California Commission on Disability Access (CCDA). This role involves collaborating with stakeholders in business, disability advocacy, and local and state government to increase business accessibility and reduce litigation. She has nineteen years of experience working in the disability access space, including thirteen years in supervisory and executive roles within public organizations. April is passionate about working at the community level to find common ground on complex issues. April holds a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies from Sonoma State University. April was born with Spina Bifida and is a wheelchair user. When she is not studying or working, she enjoys spending time with her husband and dog, traveling across the United States, and kayaking.
Board Member, Deepa Goraya
Deepa Goraya is the Co-Founder and Attorney of GH Disability Law Group, PLLC., a disability rights firm founded by attorneys with disabilities based in Washington, DC. Deepa has experience in enforcing the rights of people with disabilities through litigation in the areas of public accommodations, transportation, Housing, employment, education, and other areas, and has focused in particular on improving the accessibility of web sites, mobile applications, and touch screen technology for the blind. Most recently, she was an Associate at McGuinness Law Group, a disability rights firm in northern California, where she investigated and litigated cases in housing discrimination and public accommodations. Prior to that, she was a Trial Attorney in the Workers’ Rights and Anti-Fraud Section at the DC Office of the Attorney General, where she investigated and litigated cases involving the failure to follow District Safe and Sick Leave laws, failure to pay proper wages, and failure to properly classify workers.
Prior to the DCOAG, Ms. Goraya was a Public Rights Project Fellow in the Office of the Delaware Attorney General, where she worked in the Division of Civil Rights and Public Trust and with the Director of Impact Litigation to address civil rights abuses by developing pattern and practice discrimination investigations and litigation in the areas of disability rights and fair housing, and working on multistate voter protection advocacy and discriminatory lending/redlining. Prior to this, Ms. Goraya worked as a Staff Attorney at Disability Rights Maryland on the ADA/DD/Medicaid Team, where she represented individuals with disabilities in administrative hearings to obtain and maintain support services such as home and community based services through Medicaid 1915(c) waivers, Maryland’s Community First Choice program, REM nursing, and in-home aid services.
Prior to joining Disability Rights Maryland, Ms. Goraya was Associate Counsel at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. While there, she worked on numerous cases challenging violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), the Rehabilitation Act, and state and local disability statutes. Some of her successes have included a settlement against Sweetgreen, Inc. to remediate its online ordering system, which was inaccessible to blind customers; a public consent decree against Barbri, Inc. to make its online course and bar review materials accessible to blind students; participating in a successful trial against Baltimore County for failure to accommodate, and then constructively discharging, a 30-year employee with a disability; and helping to settle a case against taxicab companies in Washington, DC that refused to pick up customers with service animals.
Ms. Goraya graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 2012. She currently serves on the boards of the Disability Rights Bar Association and the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, and as the First Vice President of the National Association of Blind Lawyers. She is an active leader and member of the National Federation of the Blind, a grassroots civil rights advocacy organization led by, and consisting of, blind individuals from around the country.
Board Member, Qudsiya Naqui
Qudsiya Naqui serves as Assistant Professor at the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clark School of Law, where she teaches family law and disability law. Her scholarship focuses on how the law and legal systems create and exacerbate marginality, particularly at the intersections of race, disability, gender, and migration. Professor Naqui is also the creator and host of the podcast, Down to the Struts, a show dedicated to disability, design, and intersectionality that uncovers the building blocks for a more just, inclusive, and accessible world. Her work on disability has been featured in Forbes Magazine, Vox, Oxford University Press, and the Disability Visibility Project. She is a proud NDLPA member. Professor Naqui lives in Washington DC with her husband, and, in her spare time, enjoys participating in adaptive sports like tandem cycling and hiking with the Metro Washington Association of Blind Athletes.
Board Member, Tara Roslin (she/her)
Tara is an attorney based in Washington, DC. She graduated from Boston University School of Law in 2020, where she founded BU Law’s affinity group for disabled law students. She is also a co-founder of the National Disabled Law Students Association (NDLSA).
During law school, Tara served as a Judicial Extern for the Honorable O. Rogeriee Thompson on the First Circuit Court of Appeals and was the Symposium Editor for the American Journal of Law and Medicine from 2019 to 2020.
She also completed a legal internship focusing on involuntary commitment defense with the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services. Additionally, as part of BU Law’s Compassionate Release Practicum, she advocated for the release of incarcerated individuals with terminal illnesses.
Tara also holds a B.A. in International Affairs/Political Science from Northeastern University, where she conducted a research fellowship with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva, Switzerland, focusing on the correlation between Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the use of indiscriminate weaponry.
Her notable publications include:
“Vitriolic Verification: Accommodations, Overbroad Medical Record Requests, and Procedural Ableism in Higher Education,” American Journal of Law & Medicine (March 2021)
“Buckman v. Commissioner of Correction: Salvaging Massachusetts? Medical Parole Program,” American Journal of Law & Medicine (July 2020)
Board Member, Makenzie Stuard (she/her)
Makenzie is an Antitrust Associate in Washington D.C. and currently serves on leadership for her firm’s disability affinity group. She graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 2024, where she co-founded UT Law’s affinity group for disabled law students. She also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Texas Journal of Civil Liberties and Civil Rights, publishing the journal’s first disability-focused issue.
During law school, she interned at the Legal Action Center and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, where she supported projects focused on improving access to Medication for Opioid Use Disorder for individuals with Opioid Use Disorder. She also interned at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Texas.
During law school, she interned at the Legal Action Center and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, where she supported projects focused on improving access to Medication for Opioid Use Disorder for individuals with Opioid Use Disorder. She also interned at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Texas.
Prior to law school, she served as a Paralegal Specialist at the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) in the Disability Rights Section, where she specialized in investigations involving substance use disorders and other nonapparent disabilities. In college at the University of Texas at Austin, she worked as an intern in the Disability Rights Section and the Federal Coordination and Compliance Section at DOJ and as a fellow for the Texas Governor’s Committee for People with Disabilities.
When she is not working on issues associated with antitrust or disability, she loves doing puzzles, trying not to fall while rollerblading, and playing softball in the law firm softball league.
Executive Director/Ex Officio Board Member, Marissa Ditkowsky (she/her)
mditkowsky@cripthelaw.org
Marissa is a multiply-disabled activist and attorney. Marissa is a former leader of the National Disabled Law Students Association. She serves full-time as the Disabilities Community Project Staff Attorney at Tzedek DC, a non-profit dedicated to safeguarding the legal rights and financial health of DC residents with low incomes dealing with debt and consumer issues. She is also an adjunct professor at the American University Washington College of Law, where she teaches disability rights. Prior to her time at Tzedek DC, she served as the Disability Economic Justice Counsel at the National Partnership for Women & Families, where she worked to advance policies that promoted the economic health of disabled women, particularly disabled women of color. Marissa also served as a litigation fellow at the AARP Foundation, where she assisted with legal research on cases involving age discrimination, reverse mortgages, nursing facilities, elder abuse, and other issues facing Americans ages fifty and older.
Marissa’s legal research on issues including disability rights, liberation lawyering, reproductive justice, and workers’ rights has been featured in publications such as the National Lawyers Guild Review; the Journal of Gender, Social Policy, & the Law; the Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equity; and the UCLA Women’s Law Journal.
Marissa graduated magna cum laude from the American University Washington College of Law in 2019. She is an inaugural Capital Chai Awardee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, a 2022 Brandeisians of the Last Decade (BOLD) 9 award recipient, and the 2025 Entrepreneurs Dedicated to Diverse & Inclusive Excellence (EDDIE) Newcomer Award recipient.