Jenna Gabriel

Jenna Gabriel (she/her) is an independent consultant whose work focuses on cultural access and anti-ableist arts learning in solidarity with disabled students. A disabled educator, scholar, artist, and mother, Jenna is deeply committed to a collaborative practice that embraces the intimacy and flexibility at the heart of justice work. Prior to beginning her consulting work, Jenna oversaw special education initiatives at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC and directed K-12 youth development programs at IBA- Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción in Boston, MA, in addition to working as a teaching artist throughout New York City. Jenna’s scholarship investigates the historical roots of dominant, oppressive understandings of disability and race, with a particular focus on post-Brown Virginia schools, and Disability Art as a site of radical politics from which (art) educators can draw in anti-ableist, identity-affirming instruction. She also maintains a creative practice inspired by visible, disabled mothering as practice of transformation, reclamation, and collective resistance. Jenna holds a Ph.D. in Education from Virginia Commonwealth University, an Ed.M. in Arts in Education from Harvard University, and a B.F.A. in Drama from New York University.