Based in San Francisco, Micaela is the founder of The Kelsey, which seeks to reimagine affordable housing for people with disabilities.

Micaela was a 2017 Mitchell Scholar and obtained her MBA from UCD’s Smurfit School. Prior to her Mitchell year, she obtained a Master’s in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

At the age of 15, Micaela founded Unified Theater, a non-profit that brings young people with and without disabilities together through school-based, student-led, arts programming. She expanded operations into six states and led 5-year strategic planning with national Board of Directors. When she left Unified Theater in 2014 to attend the Kennedy School, the organization had impacted thousands of young people in almost 100 schools across the country. On a brief visit to Ireland, she was struck by how people with disabilities were included in Irish life and wondered what drives this kind of culture of connection and wants to learn if it can it be replicated, even in a small way, in the US. Her goal is to work on issues of disability housing and employment on a national scale.

Micaela obtained her undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia.