Who We Are
We’re a collective of artists, organizers, researchers, public servants, and systems thinkers — people working across art, academia, mutual aid, and public life to grow cultures of care and collective liberation. Meet the people shaping this work — our Board of Directors, Advisory Council, Founder, and collective collaborators.
Board of Directors
Atlas Jackson
Atlas Jackson (he/him) is a disabled PhD student studying the anthropology of disability at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where his research explores how disabled communities create meaning, identity, and care beyond medical and institutional frameworks under capitalism. Based in Chicago, Atlas also serves as co-director of a queer, disabled arts collective and community space, cultivating creative access and collective expression through art, performance, and mutual support. His work bridges scholarship, activism, and art to challenge ableist narratives and imagine liberatory futures.
Austin Puca
Austin Puca (she/her) is a health equity advocate and systems strategist with over 16 years of experience in health and human services, victims’ advocacy, and supportive housing. Living with chronic illness herself, she brings both professional expertise and lived experience to her work advancing care systems rooted in dignity, collaboration, and justice. Austin works for a national nonprofit providing technical assistance for health and housing programs and initiatives. Her leadership centers on integration, ethical collaboration, and equity-driven evaluation – principles shaped by her years managing Tucson’s Continuum of Care to end homelessness. Austin studied nursing, linguistics, and sociology at the University of Arizona, and she is passionate about bridging lived experience with systemic change to imagine more inclusive and compassionate futures for all.
Cat Poltson
Cat Polston (she/her) is a disabled public servant and former social worker dedicated to advancing housing stability, equity, and community well-being. Drawing from her own experiences with disability and youth homelessness, she approaches systems work with a deep understanding of how policy decisions impact real lives. Her decade in social work continues to inform her approach to public administration, where she works to make government programs more accessible, transparent, and humane. Aligned with Sick Futures' mission, Cat believes that accessibility, autonomy, and care are collective responsibilities, and she hopes to bring her skills in program oversight and advocacy to help bridge institutional systems with community-driven visions of justice and interdependence.
Izzy Hernandez
Izzy Hernandez (he/him) works off the Gulf Coast as a sailor and mutual aid organizer. Through their work with Houston Food Not Bombs, Izzy helps feed and support unhoused communities and leads local direct action efforts. Growing up near industrial sites and witnessing loved ones develop chronic illness and cancer from environmental exposure and pollution shaped Izzy’s understanding of how inequity and environmental racism harm marginalized communities. He has seen firsthand the injustice, neglect, and how society and lawmakers have ostracized those living with medical and physical differences. As a member of Sick Futures Collective, Izzy is most excited to contribute new ideas, build solidarity, and learn from others working to create a world where all bodies are valued and protected.
Sal Marx
Sal Marx (they/them) is a trans disability advocate, multimedia artist, and Narrative Medicine professional whose journey into disability justice began when they were 13, thrust into the role of navigating their own chronic illness(es) as a patient advocate. With an M.S. in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University and experience leading patient-centered programs in healthcare settings, Sal is passionate about centering visual art made by & with patients as a means to create agency and counter ableist-capitalist structures of erasure. Sal is excited to join the board of Sick Futures Collective to help build a storytelling archive where sick and disabled people are fully seen and represented for their diversity, creativity, and superpowers. Sal lives in Brooklyn, NY with their cat Sisyphus.
Advisory Council
Em Krall
Em Krall (they/she) is a multimedia print artist, writer, archivist, and disability advocate from Red Lodge, Montana. Based in Portland, Oregon, they operate a small zine distribution network called Sandwich Press, where they work to print & publish DIY art which speaks to themes of identity, experimentation, and silliness. Though their personal experience with disability informs much of their advocacy, their passions lie in helping other people share their own stories. Em dreams of a world which widely understands chronic illness & disability as valid, fluid, personal, and inspiring.
Miranda Wood
Miranda Wood (she/her) is the Strategic Development & Systems Advisor for Sick Futures Collective, bringing a background in nonprofit fundraising, community organizing, and mission-driven program design. She has worked across LGBTQ+ advocacy, STEM workforce development, and grassroots political engagement, specializing in grant writing, evaluation, and building sustainable, multi-stream funding systems. Currently an MBA candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, Miranda approaches organizational development with a systems-level lens grounded in equity, clarity, and long-term resilience. Her work is shaped by deep relationships within disabled communities and a commitment to building structures that materially support sick and disabled people.
Founder
Charlie Moses
Charlie Moses (they/she) is a systems-change advocate, organizer, and multimedia artist whose work is shaped by years of living with chronic illness and disability – experiencing the harm and erasure produced by colonial, capitalist, white-supremacist, patriarchal, ableist, homophobic, and transphobic systems that shape our biomedical structures. After heart surgery in their twenties and years of navigating complex, mobility-shifting chronic conditions, Charlie founded Sick Futures Collective to build the kind of community they needed themselves — a crip-led space grounded in collective care, creativity, and future-building. With over a decade of experience in organizing, mutual aid, youth work, and cross-sector coalition building, they bridge lived experience with movement strategy and cultural work. Charlie is a doctoral student in Critical Medical Anthropology, exploring how sick and disabled people build futures of care, meaning, and connection beyond institutional systems. Their creative practice, research, and organizing work inform their commitment to reimagining futures where people feel less alone and more free.