Anna Hope Landre

Brief biography

Anna is a wheelchair-using activist and scholar whose work spans the disciplines of disability studies, humanitarian relief, international development, urban planning, human-computer interaction, and social care policy. Within these, she focuses on the disability law "implementation gap", in which progressive legal standards often fail to improve disabled people's lives in practice. Her PhD will explore how technology can aid local governments and disability communities in better auditing and improving urban disability access.

She recently worked as the Ukraine Crisis Focal Point at The Partnership for Disaster Strategies, a US-based disability-led disaster response organization, to support Ukrainian disability rights organization Fight for Right in launching an evacuation and humanitarian aid mechanism for disabled Ukrainians being left behind in the international response to the war. In the past, Anna worked with the Partnership on disability justice-oriented pandemic relief policies and helped to expand the organization's presence in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Before this, Anna served the Washington, DC government as a twice-elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner. There, she advocated for disability inclusion in DC's urban planning, social care, and pandemic-relief policies. Her achievements included successfully ending the city's de-prioritization of disabled people for COVID-19 vaccines and changing the DC Comprehensive Plan to reflect disability rights frameworks.

Anna recieved her BS in Foreign Service (Regional and Comparative Studies, Disability Studies) from Georgetown University (2021) and MSc in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies from the London School of Economics (2022). She grew up in Howell, NJ, USA and is a Truman (2020) and Marshall (2021) Scholar.

Anna's advocacy efforts have been featured in outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post, Forbes, Vogue, and others. She was just named to the Shaw Trust's Disability Power 100, a list of the 100 most influential disabled people in the UK.