Current Board Members
Carole Schwartz, MS, Gerontology, OTR
Immediate Past President
Email Carole | LinkedIn | ResearchGate
Carole Schwartz is Immediate Past President of the Alliance for Disability in Health Care Education. She served as ADHCE President from 2024–2026, Vice President from 2022 through July 2024, and has served as a Board member since 2021.
Schwartz contributes to professional health care education, advocacy, and quality-improvement projects and continues to coauthor publications related to disability, health care inequity, and health care quality measures. She has a particular interest in disability health care curriculum equity for people with impairments of cognition and communication.
Her more than 30 years of professional experience includes clinical occupational therapy in acute and post-acute rehabilitation, research and development of health care quality measures, policy work, disability health advocacy, and adjunct faculty roles.
Sarah Ailey, PhD, RN, CDDN, FAAN
Email Sarah | LinkedIn | Publications
Dr. Sarah Ailey is a professor in the Department of Community, Systems, and Mental Health Nursing at Rush University in Chicago. Her research and scholarly practice focus on improving the lives of people with disabilities, particularly people with intellectual disabilities, by translating research into practice in community and inpatient hospital settings.
She is Principal Investigator for the Partnering with Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities to Transform Health Outcomes (PATH-PWIDD) Program, funded by the Administration for Community Living. The program addresses gaps in health professions training by embedding disability-related content about the health care of people with IDD into an interprofessional health education curriculum.
Dr. Ailey also leads the Steps to Effective Problem-solving (STEPS) program in group homes and has advised numerous graduate nursing students on projects related to the care of people with disabilities. She is a former President of ADHCE.
Doreen Bestolarides, RN
Email Doreen | LinkedIn
Doreen Bestolarides is a retired nurse, parent and professional advocate, and active ADHCE Board member. She has more than three decades of hospital nursing experience, with a focus in critical care, and dedicated her nursing career to improving care for hospitalized patients with developmental disabilities.
Her advocacy has included work with the Developmental Disabilities Nurses Association Nursing Practice Committee and the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry. She is a national speaker on IDD health equity and received the AADMD Family Advocacy Award in 2021.
Rebecca Kronk, PhD, MSN, CRNP, ANEF, FAAN, CNE
Email Rebecca | Faculty Profile & Scholarship
Dr. Rebecca Kronk is a certified pediatric nurse practitioner with a PhD in Developmental Psychology. Her practice specialty has focused on pediatric genetics and disability nursing.
Dr. Kronk trained as a fellow in the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) program at the University of Pittsburgh, where her work focused on the clinical application of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health to children with disabilities.
Her work has included genomics, disability health care, simulation, and programs for youth with disabilities. She is a Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Duquesne University School of Nursing and is a former President of ADHCE.
Beth Latimer, DNP, GNP-BC, CHSE, ANEF, FNYAM
Email Beth | LinkedIn
Beth Latimer is a Clinical Professor and Executive Director of the Joan K. Stout, RN, FAAN, Clinical Simulation Learning Center at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing.
As a Golisano Fellow and board-certified Geriatric Nurse Practitioner, Dr. Latimer specializes in the intersection of aging, disability, and inclusive health care. Her scholarship focuses on integrating disability competencies into clinical simulation to improve outcomes for all populations.
Anna C. Quon, PhD, MBA HM, BSN, RN, AMB-BC, NEA-BC
Email Anna | LinkedIn
Dr. Anna C. Quon is an Assistant Professor at Rush University College of Nursing whose scholarship focuses on disability health equity, health professions education, and health system improvement for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
She brings two decades of nursing and health system experience across clinical care, education, evidence-based practice, and nursing research leadership. Her disability equity research includes work related to mammography access, preventive care, social drivers of health, diagnostic overshadowing, and ableism in health care.
Rick Rader, MD
Email Rick
Dr. Rick Rader is a physician cross-trained in internal medicine and medical anthropology and is board certified in Developmental Medicine.
- President, American Association on Health and Disability
- Co-founder and Vice President of External Affairs, American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry
- National Medical Advisor, National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals
- Director of the Habilitation Center, Orange Grove Center, Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Editor in Chief, HELEN: The Journal of Human Exceptionality
- Board member, National Task Group on Intellectual Disabilities and Dementia Practices
- Distinguished Practitioner and member, National Academy of Practice in Medicine
- Adjunct faculty member in medicine and oral medicine
- Author of approximately 300 articles on health and disability
- Consultant to the Office of the Surgeon General on developmental disabilities
Cara N. Whalen Smith, PT, DPT, MPH, CHES
Email Cara | Staff Profile
Dr. Cara Whalen Smith is an Accessibility Consultant at the Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center (GRC). She leads the GRC Access Office, serves as GRC's Digital Accessibility Designee, and directs health care workforce development and health promotion projects designed to improve outcomes for people with disabilities.
She is also Adjunct Faculty in The Ohio State University School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, where she teaches Global Health and Disability. As a public health physical therapist and Certified Health Education Specialist, her work includes accessibility, universal design, program planning, evaluation, and community health.
Dr. Whalen Smith served on the Core Competencies Development Committee and as evaluation lead for the Ohio Disability and Health Program's work establishing national consensus on the Core Competencies on Disability for Health Care Education.
