Meet Rebecca…
Rebecca Cokley joined the Ford Foundation in January of 2021 as the first U.S. Program Officer to oversee a Disability Rights Portfolio. Prior to joining Ford, she served as the co-founder and Director of the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress.
A three time Presidential Appointee for President Barack Obama, Rebecca served at the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and at the White House where she oversaw diversity and inclusion efforts in the first term. In 2020 she was awarded the Richman Distinguished Fellow in Public Life for Brandeis University.
Rebecca has spoken at Netroots Nation, New York City Comic-Con, Yale University, the Women’s March National Conference and given a TedX talk and been a guest on MSNBC and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. She was a Karl Pister Scholar at the University of California, Santa Cruz where she graduated with a B.A. in Politics. She is the proud spouse of Patrick and mother of 3, and is currently working on her first book.