This year, the IDRA Newsletter is highlighting our staff’s varied and diverse talents and backgrounds. Laurie Posner, MPA, directs IDRA’s Department of Civic Engagement. Outside of her work at IDRA, Laurie has a deep interest in community collaboration and problem-solving in other countries. She has worked on a microenterprise development project for entrepreneurs with disabilities in San Salvador, El Salvador; collaborated on a women’s leadership development and reforestation project in Managua and the Matagalpa Region in Nicaragua, and learned about equity and youth development projects in Sydney , Australia. With a particular interest in community-technology and knowledge-building, Laurie serves as a peer reviewer for the Journal of Community Informatics, which examines international research on the use of information and communications technology (ICT) by NGOs, foundations and governments.

Laurie’s commitment to disability rights, access, and inclusion in the United States and other countries, builds on her work with the World Institute on Disability (where she helped to set up and run a center on economic development and disability) and as board chair for AXIS Dance Company, an international, physically-integrated dance company that creates an artistic and cultural home for leading choreographers and dancers with and without disabilities. She continues to support AXIS in its work to transform understandings of art, collaborative expression, and human interdependence. She has remained closer to home this past year, but hopes to visit family in Kolkata, India (pictured here with her brother, Andrew) and learn more about education and community-based technology projects in West Bengal.

Comments and questions may be directed to IDRA via email at feedback@idra.org.

[©2015, IDRA. This article originally appeared in the March 2015 IDRA Newsletter by the Intercultural Development Research Association. Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided the article is reprinted in its entirety and proper credit is given to IDRA and the author.]

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