John Tschida, MPP
Image Description: Headshot photo of John Tschida, a smiling man with glasses, graying brown hair, and a goatee, wearing a navy suit, white shirt, and red and blue patterned tie.
John Tschida, MPP, is the executive director of the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD). He has spent more than 20 years using data and research to drive policy change and service development for individuals with disabilities. Before joining AUCD in February of 2017 as associate executive director, he was appointed as the director of the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. NIDILRR is the federal government’s premier applied research agency impacting individuals with disabilities.
Prior to joining NIDILRR in 2014, he served as director of public policy and innovation at Allina Health in Minnesota, where he helped integrate medical and community-based services for people with disabilities. At the Courage Center, Minnesota’s leading nonprofit provider of rehabilitation services, Mr. Tschida was vice president of public affairs and research. There, he built and directed a public policy and research team that focused on defining and achieving better outcomes for people with disabilities. He also led a statewide, cross-disability legislative coalition of more than 100 provider and advocacy organizations.
Earlier in his career, Tschida served as a research fellow at the National Rehabilitation Hospital Center for Health and Disability Research, in Washington, D.C. He was also assistant director of the Minnesota House of Representatives Public Information Office.
Mr. Tschida has served on several public and private boards designing policy or governance solutions to further the independence of people with disabilities. He has written numerous articles on disability and public policy for national and local publications.
Mr. Tschida, who has lived with a spinal cord injury since 1993, has a master’s degree in public policy and a health services research certificate from Georgetown University, and a bachelor of arts from Macalester College.
Terrance E. Moore
Image Description: Terrance is a young black man with short hair wearing a grey suit and a black striped tie. He is standing outside with trees behind him.
Terrance E. Moore is the Chief Executive Officer at AMCHP and is responsible for building on and preserving AMCHP’s mission of protecting and promoting women, children, youth, families, and communities.
Mr. Moore maintains an unwavering commitment to social justice, human rights, and dismantling anti-racism and structural inequality in public policy. Throughout his career, he has focused on managing the nexus between organizational management and human rights advocacy for racial, sexual orientation, and gender equality while serving both the political and non-profit spheres in progressive leadership capacities. He has excelled in working with partners, formulating advocacy strategies on key issues in health, and maintaining a superior understanding of the U.S. Congress, federal agencies, and strategic partnerships.
Before joining AMCHP, Mr. Moore worked for more than 15 years at NASTAD. As Acting Executive Director, he served as a transformative agent fostering strong federal partnerships, business development, and policy advocacy while managing domestic and international programs in Ethiopia, Haiti, Jamaica, and South Africa. Prior to this role, he served as Deputy Executive Director, where he influenced substantial organizational growth through a strategic planning process that resulted in the first-ever expansion of NASTAD’s membership; spearheaded the domestic programs’ portfolio to drive initiatives in HIV healthcare and prevention and health equity; and created and led a Health Resource and Service Administration-funded ($5 million) initiative to assess the HIV care needs of Black gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM).
Mr. Moore received his Bachelor of Arts from Howard University in Political Science and a Master of Arts in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University. He has also participated as a Fellow for Racial and Gender Justice in the HIV/AIDS Movement from the Rockwood Leadership Institute.
Lauren Raskin Ramos
Image Description: Lauren is a young woman with straight brown hair to her shoulders. She is outside with greenery behind her. She is wearing a blue long sleeved shirt.
Lauren Raskin Ramos, MPH, is the Director of the Division of Maternal and Child Health Workforce Development at the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB). In this role, Lauren leads federal efforts to train the current and future MCH workforce. Lauren is also the lead for MCHB’s Autism investments in training, research, and state systems development. Previously, Lauren held leadership roles at the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. Lauren is a member of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. She served as an Officer of the MCH Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA) and as a Board member of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition. Lauren completed her MPH at the UCLA School of Public Health and received her BA from Tufts University. Lauren is a recipient of APHA’s MCH Young Professional Award.
Marilyn Augustyn, MD, FAAP
Image Description: In this black and white picture, Marilyn is pictured as a white woman with long hair. She is wearing a light-colored scarf and a sweater. Behind her is a bookcase.
Dr. Marilyn Augustyn is a Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center. She is board certified in Developmental and Behavioral. She completed medical school at Loyola University in Chicago and residency in Pediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles, followed by fellowship in Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Boston City Hospital.
Dr. Augustyn has had an active clinical practice evaluating and treating children with a broad range of developmental and behavioral disorders since she came to BMC in 1992. Her research interests and grant activities have focused on the impact of in utero cocaine and opioid exposure, witnessing violence, and the role of family navigation in supporting families following the diagnosis of a child with an autism spectrum disorder. She has served on numerous state and national committees, including the American Board of Pediatrics DBP Subboard. She is the DBP section co-editor for the online journal Up To Date and is co-editor of the Challenging Case Series for the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. A personal and professional goal has been to advance the partnership between DBP and general pediatrics to support the development of all children and recently has worked with many colleagues to improve workforce challenges in Pediatric Subspecialties and recently became the SDBP liaison to the Council of Pediatric Subspecialties (COPS) liaison.
Yetta Myrick
Image Description: Yetta is a Black woman with short black hair. She is wearing a black blazer with a white polka dot blouse.
Yetta Myrick is the mother of a young adult son diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder and Intellectual Disability. She is the Founder and President of DC Autism Parents (DCAP), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in the District of Columbia. Ms. Myrick has served as the CDC’s Act Early Ambassador to the District of Columbia since 2016 and is currently leading the DC Act Early COVID-19 Response Team Project. She leads the DC Autism Collaborative’s Developmental Monitoring, Screening, and Evaluation Subgroup and serves as the Parent Educator/Advocate on the ECHO Autism HUB Team at Children’s National Hospital. Ms. Myrick co-leads the“Family Voices United to End Racism Against CYSHCN and Families” Project and the stakeholder collaborative for the “Building Capacity in the African American ASD Community for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research” funded through the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communication Studies from The Catholic University of America. Ms. Myrick was the Community Outreach Coordinator at the Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders (CASD) at Children’s National from 2016-2020 and a Studio Technician at C-SPAN from 2005-2016. In 2021, she was appointed to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee by Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, J.D. Additionally, Ms. Myrick is a member of the DC Developmental Disabilities Council and the Got Transition® National Family Health Care Transition Advisory Group. She deeply believes that parental involvement is key to obtaining quality services for all children and that an informed parent is an engaged parent.
Ivanova Smith
Image Description: Ivanova has short hair and is wearing red-framed glasses. They are wearing a blue tie, red dress shirt, and grey blazer.
Ivanova Smith is Faculty at the University of Washington LEND as a self-advocate discipline leader and activist advocate for Atwork. Ivanova has been heavily involved with the self-advocacy movement for Washington state. Ivanova is happily married with two little girls.
Ida Winters
Image Description: Ida is a young black woman with long curly hair. She is wearing large round gold earrings, a pink jeweled necklace, and a pink blouse.
Ida Winters is the mother of 3 wonderful young men who all live with special healthcare needs and one who received a late diagnosis of Autism. Ida is committed to being that person that she needed during her and her children’s journey to a diagnosis and being an avid advocate for change at home, in her community, and wherever she is needed. Ida strongly believes that the only way for change to truly happen is by educating and empowering the underserved, underprivileged, underrepresented, as well as overlooked populations, and changing the narrative from “underserved” to “well served”!
Ida is currently a Family Engagement Specialist at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she works with both the Wisconsin Care Integration Initiative (WiCII) and with WI LEND. Ida is a WI LEND graduate and was named an AUCD 2020-2021 Emerging Leader for Wisconsin. Ida is a LEND Family Peer Mentor, plans and leads training activities, and works with the ECHO Accelerated Equity Learning Community (AELC) team with the National Maternal Child Health Workforce Development Center (WI). Ida is a member of the National Resource Center for Patient/Family-Centered Medical Home Health Equity Subcommittee (NRC-PFCMH).
In the past Ida has worked as an Autism Family Navigator at the Next Step Clinic in Milwaukee, WI, providing developmental screenings, referrals, support, and education to families, caregivers, and professionals about child development and the importance of early identification. Ida served as Chair of Next Step Clinic’s Community Advisory Board and Co-chair of Milwaukee Coalition for Children’s Mental Health Community of Practice Community Health Worker Strategy. She also worked as a Family Advocate and Wellness Coach in Mental Health America of WI’s Strong Family Healthy Home program.
Timotheus (T.J.) Gordon, Jr.
Image Description: Timotheus is a young black man with medium-length hair. He is wearing square glasses. He is in front of a white background and is wearing a purple long sleeve sweater.
Timotheus “T.J.” Gordon Jr., MFA, MS, is a research associate at the Institute on Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Gordon uses his passion for self-advocacy, racial equity, disability culture, and autism acceptance to create webinars, training sessions, and publications on autism and race, inclusion in communities of color, exploration of sexuality in the disability community, coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health emergency services, and more.
He is also a co-founder of Chicagoland Disabled People of Color Coalition (Chicagoland DPOCC), which is supported by the Institute on Disability and Human Development. Chicagoland DPOCC is a group of disabled people of color in the Chicagoland area that promote disability pride, self-advocacy, and inclusion in communities of color throughout the Chicagoland area.
In addition to his self-advocacy work, Gordon has also written essays and reviews related to disability and race. His writings appear in the Disability Studies Review, the “All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism” anthology, and ADA 30 in Color.
2023 Autism CARES Grantee Meeting 