Brenda Liz Muñoz

GA Parent to Parent
Center for Leadership in Disability
Georgia State University

Brenda Liz (Bren) Muñoz is a 2014-2018 State of Georgia Governor Appointed and Excutive Council Member with Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities (GCDD), as well as a 2015-2017 Diversity Fellow, and 2014-2016 Family Fellow/Trainee with Georgia’s Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (GaLEND) with the Center for Leadership in Disability (CLD) the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. At CLD, Bren co-leads with Dr. Emily Graybill the Latino Community of Practice: Supporting Families with Children and Youth with Disabilities, a diverse, multi-sector consortium of professionals, families and allies in Georgia with three areas of focus: 1) professional capacity building and collective impact; 2) Latino parent education and leadership training, and; 3) formal and informal advocacy in public policy and systems of care.

She is a former Georgia Department of Public Health/Autism Plan for Georgia/Parent to Parent of Georgia Parent Partner working with Dr. Isadore Leslie Rubin at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. Bren is also a freelance English<>Spanish bilingual, multicultural advocate, cultural bearer and broker, educator, interpreter and translator and consultant. She obtained a Master of Science degree in Education with focus on Educational Foundations and Policy Studies, as well a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Spanish (dual major) and Women's Studies (minor). She holds a professional certificate as an Interpreter in Education from The University of Georgia, completed Georgia’s Partners in Policymaking in 2014, and is a 2015 inaugural graduate of the Georgetown University, National Center for Cultural Competence, Cultural Diversity and Cultural and Linguistic Competence and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Leadership Academy.

Bren is a proud parent of a tall, dark and handsome bilingual nonverbal young man who lives with severe to profound autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Her blended family is fluent in English, Spanish and (Brazilian) Portuguese. A native of the island of San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, she lived in Hartford, Connecticut for two decades, and a few years ago relocated to metro Atlanta, Georgia. Other leadership service include work with the Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Advisory Board on Screening as a Parent Advocate/Leader, the Association of University Centers on Developmental Disabilities (AUCD) on their Diversity and Inclusion Advisory and Action Teams, the award-winning Broad Prize in Urban Education Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) as an Advisory Council Member to the Local School Board, and regional liaison with the American Association on Health and Disability (AAHD) for Georgia, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. Bren is mentee to Mathew McCollough, Executive Director of the Washington D.C. Developmental Disabilities Council, and President-elect of the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities (NACDD).