REV UP Coalitions Coordinator

Alexia Kemerling (she/her) is the REV UP Coalitions Coordinator at AAPD. She works to support grassroots activists across the U.S. in building the power of the disability vote.

Before joining the AAPD team, Alexia served as the Community Engagement Coordinator for Disability Rights Ohio. In this role, she focused on engaging disabled activists in state policy. She worked with multiple coalitions using advocacy strategies ranging from traditional approaches, like organizing testimony and meeting with policymakers, to creative campaigns using art and storytelling. Her policy work included advocating to increase wages for direct care workers, helping develop new legislation to create a statewide program to provide support services to DeafBlind Ohioans, and preventing increases to forced treatment for people with mental illness. 

Alexia’s past work also included improving accessibility within Ohio’s state government, removing barriers that excluded people from engaging in state policy. Alexia is passionate about creating a culture of access and firmly believes that disabled people deserve a seat at every table where decisions are being made. 

Being Hard of Hearing, Alexia has been a lifelong disability advocate, but her passion for this work developed in college when she formed and led a student movement to improve accessibility on her college campus. During this time, she also worked as a research assistant studying the impacts of ableism. She has contributed research and writing to the scholarship of social psychologist Dr. Nario-Redmond. 

Alexia finds joy in cooking, sharing fun facts, snuggling with her two dogs Rocky and Rupert, going on walks, reading, and drawing. She also occasionally writes for The Squeaky Wheel, a funny disability satire publication.