David Egan is an eager advocate and leader for people with intellectual disabilities at the local, national, and international level. He was the first person with an intellectual disability to serve as a JP Kennedy Jr. Public Policy Fellow on Capitol Hill. He worked in competitive positions for over 2 decades as a clerk in the Distribution Center at Booz Allen Hamilton and then as a CBRE staff member. He later worked for five years at SourceAmerica as a Community Relations Specialist. He is a Special Olympics athlete in Northern Virginia and has served as a Sargent Shriver International Global Messenger. He has testified about employment at the Senate HELP Committee, spoke twice at the United Nations. He also briefed the National Institutes of Health (NIH/NICHD) Advisory Council and spoke at various NIH research conferences. He currently represents self-advocates on the NIH Down Syndrome Consortium. He is an avid participant in NIH funded research projects. Over the years, he has received numerous awards from his employers, Special Olympics, the National Down Syndrome Society, AAIDD, and Global Down Syndrome Foundation. The latest two awards were the Media Award by the American Association for Intellectual and Developmental Disability as well as the prestigious Global Down Syndrome Foundation Quincy Jones Award. He has served on several Boards in the past years (The Arc of Northern Virginia, and the Down Syndrome Affiliates in Action). and is currently a Board Director at the Down Syndrome Association of Northern Virginia, at Melwood Enterprises and at the CEO Commission for Disability Employment. David is the author of “More Alike than Different: My Life With Down Syndrome” (www.davideganadvocacy.com)
Kathleen B. Egan is a retired professional whose experiences span a range of positions in academia, the private and government sectors and in various countries where she taught, managed, and conducted research. She is a pioneer in inserting language technologies in various educational and government settings where she worked from 1988 to 2016. Early in her career in the United States, she partnered in research with health professionals at the University of Wisconsin, when her first son was born with Down syndrome in 1977 and with the NIH research projects. She served on the NIH/NICHD Advisory Council, and currently serves on the INCLUDE Collaboration for Down Syndrome Progress (CDP) Observational Study Monitoring Board Members (OSMB). She volunteers for various IDD organizations. Dr. Egan has a License from the Universite Catholique Leuven, in Belgium in 1969, and a Ph.D in Education from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1980. Married, a parent of 4 adult children and a grandparent of four. She is an active advocate for people with intellectual disabilities and proud mother of David Egan with Down syndrome.