Marlene Sallo has over 35 years of experience in public policy, legal advocacy, community engagement, training and technical assistance work. She has focused her career on promoting justice for people with disabilities, people of color, and people with several identities who have been harmed by multiple systems. Her litigation and public policy career have allowed her to address several social issues including, but not limited to, unequal educational opportunities for minority students with a disability, voter suppression and the criminalization of minority youth with disabilities.

Ms. Sallo currently serves as the executive director of the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN). She is the first woman, first Latina and first person with a disability to lead NDRN. Prior to joining NDRN, she served as director of Preventing Targeted Violence at the McCain Institute for International Leadership. Ms. Sallo previously served as executive director of the Massachusetts Disability Law Center (DLC), the federally designated Protection and Advocacy agency for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Earlier in her career, she was an education attorney with Disability Rights Florida, providing protection and advocacy to students with disabilities and children in the state’s child welfare system.