Speakers

Julianna Rodrigues is a disability rights advocate and community leader whose work focuses on equity, inclusion, and accessibility. She serves as the Community Inclusion for Young Children Project Coordinator at the Lehigh Valley Center for Independent Living(LVCIL), where she supports families of young children with disabilities, connecting them with resources, education, peer support, and advocacy opportunities.

As a person with a disability, Julianna brings both professional knowledge and lived experience to her work. She serves on several statewide and local advisory bodies, including Pennsylvania’s Governor’s Commission on People with Disabilities, the Pennsylvania Rehabilitation Council, the Employment First Oversight Commission, and the Lehigh County Human Relations Commission. 

A graduate of Moravian University with a master’s in Rehabilitation Counseling from Assumption University, Julianna is passionate about empowering others and ensuring that people with disabilities have a voice in the decisions that affect their lives.

Pete Steiner is a Director at The Precisionists, Inc. (TPI), a national organization dedicated to creating employment for autistic and other neurodivergent adults. TPI delivers administrative and technology services using industry best practices within a supportive, team-based environment, demonstrating the unique strengths and capabilities of neurodiverse talent.

A Penn State (BS Chem Eng) and Carnegie Mellon University alumnus (MBA), Pete brings more than 30 years of leadership experience in engineering, technology, and operations, including senior management roles at Bank of America, CSC, MBNA America, and Hercules. His career spans enterprise technology transformation, global team leadership, and large-scale operational delivery.

Pete serves as Vice Chair of the Tech Council of Delaware and is an active volunteer in his parish and broader community. He strongly believes that individuals with disabilities possess exceptional strengths—and are outstanding candidates for businesses seeking committed, high-performing talent.

For over twenty years, Ms. Tesler has been a passionate advocate and visionary who supports inclusion and meaningful lives for people with developmental disabilities. She is a graduate of Lafayette College, Competence and Confidence: Partners in Policymaking (C2P2) through Temple University’s Institute on Disabilities, The National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities through the University of Delaware, and the Charting the LifeCourse Ambassador training through the University of Missouri – Kansas City Institute for Human Development. From 2005 to 2019, Ms. Tesler worked for Vision for Equality providing training and mentoring for family members and self-advocates, most recently as the director of the PA Family Network. Her work also included systems advocacy to end the waiting list for services and to promote public policy to support all people to live self-determined lives in their communities. Ms. Tesler began her tenure as Executive Director in October 2019.

Angie Whistler, M.S.Ed., is a mixed-methods researcher dedicated to advancing equity, accessibility, and systemic inclusion for people with disabilities. She currently serves as a Researcher at the American Foundation for the Blind’s Public Policy and Research Institute. She brings extensive expertise in qualitative methodologies, survey and protocol design, and policy-oriented research. At AFB, Angie leads key components of the organization’s research on aging and vision loss and contributes to national studies on AI accessibility and digital inclusion. Her work focuses on the unmet needs of individuals experiencing new changes in vision, the unique challenges students face in the current post-secondary education landscape, and how emerging technologies shape independence and equitable participation for people who are blind or low vision.

Her current contributions to the AFB team include Bridging the Rehab Gap, New Doors, New Locks, the AI Quagmire, and Navigating Towards AI. Across all her projects, Angie translates complex findings into clear, actionable insights for policymakers, service providers, and community partners.

Before joining AFB, Angie served as a Research Associate at the American Institutes for Research and earned her Master of Science in Education Policy from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, as well as bachelor’s degrees in International Economic Development and U.S. History from the University of North Texas.

Across her work, her core focus is on improving adult-centered andragogical and pedagogical practices to better serve diverse, underrepresented populations. She is committed to producing rigorous, human-centered research that elevates lived experience and drives meaningful systems change.