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 futures grounded in interdependence.
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. As Senior Program Manager of Federal Technical Assistance at the Corporation for Supportive Housing, Austin supports national efforts to strengthen partnerships between healthcare, housing, and community sectors. 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 is passionate about bridging lived experience with systemic change.
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.
Founder
Charlie Moses
Charlie Moses (she/they) 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 healthcare structures. Having undergone heart surgery in their twenties and navigated complex chronic conditions for years, Charlie founded Sick Futures Collective to build the kind of community they needed themselves – a crip-led space grounded in care, creativity, and interdependence. 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 people create meaning, care, and connection outside institutions. Their creative practice, research, and organizing work inform their commitment to reimagining futures where sick and disabled people feel less alone and more free.
Advisory Council
Coming soon!