Gyasi Burks-Abbott, MS - Self Advocate

Gyasi Burks-Abbott is a writer, public speaker, and autism self-advocate. He graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN with a BA in English and psychology, and he has an M.S. in Library and Information Science from Simmons University in Boston. Gyasi has been both a LEND Fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital and a UCEDD Fellow at UMass Boston’s Institute for Community Inclusion. He’s collaborated on articles for the Developmental Disabilities Network Journal and contributed to the Association of University Centers on Disabilities’ Policy Blog. Currently, Gyasi serves on the boards and committees of several autism and disability organizations including Advocates for Autism of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council, and the Permanent Commission on the Status of Persons with Disabilities. Recently, Gyasi published a book about his life called My Mother’s Apprentice: An Autistic’s Rites of Passage. He lives in Bedford, Massachusetts.