Our Team

Emi Kane, Director (she/her)

Emi Kane is the director of Long COVID Justice / Strategies for High Impact. She is a disabled and chronically ill educator, researcher and organizer. Emi spent many years working for a large university and a small foundation on health and migration, reparations and redistributive justice, and how people think and learn. She is also a former National Collective member for INCITE, a feminist of color anti-violence network, a co-founder of Survived and Punished, and a former but forever proud member of the Allied Media Projects board of directors. Above all, she thinks that relationships of trust are the most important political tools we have, and tries to live and work in ways that reflect that belief.

Gabriel San Emeterio LMSW, Senior Fellow (they/she/he)

Gabriel is a queer activist raised in Mexico City and living in New York City for the past 23 years. They hold a BA of their own design in Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies from CUNY, focused on Gender Studies and Community Organizing. Following their commitment to social justice, Gabriel obtained his graduate degree with honors from the Silberman School of Social Work with Community Organizing as a method of practice and a certificate in Social Policy. They are also honored to be a member of the HIV Caucus (aka U.S. People Living with HIV Caucus). Gabriel’s passion for liberatory community work guides her life efforts, which include advocacy and grassroots organizing around policies and issues that affect the LGBTQIA+ community, welfare rights, and people living with HIV, ME/CFS and other fatiguing illnesses such as Long COVID.

Voula O’Grady, Community Manager and Organizer (she/her)

Voula is an educator, designer, and organizer whose work has focused on health and wellness, youth development, collective care and community building, queer cultural organizing, arts education, and other social justice projects.

JD is a health justice strategist for networks of disabled and chronically ill people. He’s worked with many pivotal groups, including ACT UP Philadelphia, Coalition for a National HIV/AIDS Strategy, Health GAP, Health Not Prisons Collective, HIV Prevention Justice Alliance, Positive Women’s Network – USA and the U.S. Caucus of People Living with HIV, and as an advisor to NIH, CDC, and health departments. As a queer and trans person living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), Long COVID and other complex chronic conditions, he writes and hosts conversations for The Cranky Queer Guide to Chronic Illness, is on the board of #MEAction and is a member of the Patient-Led Research Collaborative.