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CORE TEAM

Norma Tan, PhD — Co-Founder & Principal 

Norma has provided strategic and operational expertise to government agencies, foundations, corporations, and not-for-profit organizations for over 23 years. She has served as a faculty advisor in the Institute for Not-for-Profit Management at the Columbia University Business School and as Research Director at the Metro Center for Urban Education, NYU, and CUNY’s Baruch College. Having completed a PhD in Educational Psychology from Columbia University, she has co-authored academic papers on human learning and cognition, nontraditional learners in public and post-secondary education, and adult learning in the workplace and numerous consultative and evaluation reports dealing with management, diversity and education issues.

Shirley Munoz, PhD — Co-Founder

T. Aradhana Hinds, MA, MSc — Project Associate

Ariel Merkel, MA — Project Associate

Ariel is an advanced Ph.D. student in the sociology department of the New School for Social Research, who has dedicated her professional and academic life to promoting the rights of people with disabilities.   In addition to her social research on the sociology of disability, Ariel has wide-range of experience in project management, case management, copyediting and teaching.  

Prior to pursuing her doctoral degree and joining Cora Group, Ariel Merkel served as a Medicaid Service Coordinator (MSC) and a Program Administrator of Residential Services for a human service agency in Buffalo, New York.  As a MSC, Ariel linked and referred people with developmentally disabilities and their families to services such as residential placement, pre-vocational and day habilitation placement, and respite services.  She managed a caseload of approximately thirty individuals residing in New York State-funded residential facilities and in the community, and also completed quarterly financial audits for individuals in group-homes and conducted regular safety observations of respective sites.  

As a Residential Program Administrator, Ariel oversaw the management of a region of group homes and a staff of over twenty employees that included the direct supervision of three Program Managers.  She also investigated and resolved allegations of noncompliance, and coordinated organizational funding and expenses. At that time, Ariel volunteered with Cemetery Restoration Team to document, clean and maintain gravestones of the Gowanda Psychiatric Center Cemetery – an experience she wrote about on a sociological blog.

Ariel’s experience in the disability sector extends to the international level: she has served both as an intern and as a consultant for the United Nations Partnership to Promote the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNPRPD).  As a UN intern, she supported the Technical Secretariat of the UNPRPD Multi-Donor Trust Fund with governance support and programmatic oversight by managing the call for proposals process.  She also analyzed trends in Member States’ proposals for UNPRPD Trust Fund and provided editorial and design support for UNPRPD informational publication and Strategic and Operational Framework.  

As an international subcontractor with UNPRPD, Ariel conducted interviews, analyzed data and provided copyedit support for the publication “Toward an Inclusive and Accessible Future for All: Voices of Persons with Disabilities on the Post-2015 Development Framework,” which documents the perspectives of people with disabilities from the Global South on a range of economic development issues.  She also supported the planning of the launch of the publication, which was held as a side-event to the UN General Assembly.

Ariel currently holds an administrative position at the New School’s Student Disability Services Office where she links students with disability with ADA-mandated services, and is also a project fellow in the Future of Disability Studies at Columbia University’s Center for Critical Analysis of Social Difference.  She is proud to serve as a student representative on the New School University’s Social Justice Committee, where she works to improve support for care givers in the New School community, as well as further the conversation on the social model of disability.  

Her current research stems from her previous work with people with disabilities in tandem with her recent international work, specifically feminist disability theory and a Goffmanian analysis of deinstitutionalization. She is fascinated by how disability, a malleable identity that shifts spatially and temporarily and yet is so deeply rooted to the body and literally embedded in bone, intersects with other identities that are typically conceptualized as socially constructed performances. 

SPECIALISTS

Mary Ann Castle

Thomas Healy

Peter Heinze, PhD

Achebe Powell    

AFFILIATES

Dudley Hamilton Associates designs and delivers tailored approaches and innovative solutions to successfully manage change, improve employee and organizational performance and develop strong leaders even in the toughest of times.

Duncan Leadership Institute offers self-development and “executive-level” skills training for the assistant population.