Dr. Jonathan Young

Dr. Young was appointed by President Barack Obama, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, to serve as Chairman of the National Council on Disability, an independent federal agency advising the President and Congress, in March 2010. He is also Partner and General Counsel at FoxKiser-a firm specializing in strategic collaboration and counseling in law, science, and medicine. Dr. Young previously served in the Executive Office of the President as Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison under President Bill Clinton and was the co-founder and former Chair of the Committee on Disability Power & Pride. As Project Director for the NRH Center for Health and Disability Research, he authored NCD's 1997 publication, Equality of Opportunity: The Making of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which subsequently became the foundation for his doctoral dissertation on the disability rights movement and was republished in 2010. He is also the author of an article on Disability & Politics in the June 2012 publication of the Oxford Companion to American Politics. Dr. Young holds a JD from Yale Law School, an MA and PhD in American history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a BA in history from Messiah College in Grantham, PA. Dr. Young is married to Nellie Wild and is the proud father of three young daughters. He is partially paralyzed from a spinal cord injury after breaking his neck in a high school wrestling match.