When and Where

The NeuroJustice Summit 2026 runs Wednesday, October 9 through Friday, October 11, 2026. The Summit is hosted primarily in person at the Shop at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, with full virtual access available across all three days so that attendance is never limited by geography, cost of travel, or physical access needs.

Keynotes

Bridgette Hamstead, Founding Director of Fish in a Tree and Chairperson of the Neurodiversity Coalition of America, opens the Summit with a keynote on the future of the neurodiversity justice and liberation movement, setting the frame for the three days that follow.

The Summit closes with a keynote from Tjerk Feitsma of the Neurodiversity Foundation in the Netherlands. Tjerk brings an international perspective on the neurodiversity movement, built from years of work as a neurodivergent impact entrepreneur building institutional change across Europe. His closing address takes up neurodiversity justice as the future of the neurodiversity movement worldwide, sending attendees out of the Summit with a wider view of where this work is headed.

The Working Group: Establishing the Neurodiversity Consulting Professional Credential

This year's Summit features one working group. Attendees will join the founding conversation for a Board-Certified Neurodiversity Consultant credential, an interactive session shaping the standards, curriculum, and capstone structure for a credential built around framework fidelity and structural analysis. The credential is designed as an alternative to deficit-model certifications, offering a rigorous pathway for consultants doing this work in the field.

Future Summits will introduce additional working groups, including one on the Neurodiversity Justice Act and one on curriculum development for a graduate-level program in Neurodiversity Studies. Both are already in early development and will return to future convenings as the movement builds toward them.

Presentations, NED Talks, and Special Programming

Beyond the keynotes and the working group, the Summit offers a full slate of presentations exploring where neurodiversity justice meets other fields and movements, including the intersections of mental health, aging, and race with neurodiversity justice, along with a presentation on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence and neurodiversity.

NED Talks bring short, focused addresses from movement leaders and practitioners, each built around a single idea worth carrying home from the Summit.

Featured guests contribute special programming across the three days, adding depth and range to the Summit beyond the core presentation and working group tracks.

Every board member of the Neurodiversity Coalition of America is speaking at this year's Summit: Stephanie Bealer, Dr. J.D. Neubauer, Dr. Adam "Dutch" Hazlett, and Sierra Grandy each bring a talk or a piece of special programming drawn from their own expertise, alongside Bridgette Hamstead's opening keynote.

Special guests, Michelle Mahoney and Dr. Angela Kingdon, will also give presentations.

Doug Blecher serves as the Summit's Neurocaster, providing live commentary and interviews throughout all three days and helping carry the energy and throughline of the Summit from session to session.

Registration

Tickets are currently $150 and can be found on Eventbrite or by clicking the link on this page. Founding subscribers of NeuroJustice on Substack receive free access to all three days of the Summit as part of their membership, along with the full archive of NeuroJustice articles and guides, access to special events and webinars, and book chapter readings.

Why This Summit Exists

The NeuroJustice Summit exists to build the neurodivergent world this movement is committed to creating. It is a space where lived expertise counts as expertise, where structural transformation is the goal rather than inclusion into systems that were never built for neurodivergent minds, and where the people doing this work get three days to build it together in the same room and the same movement.

Get your Tickets Here

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/neurojustice-summit-2026-virtual-october-9-10-11-all-dates-included-tickets-1993026207036

NeuroJustice Summit 2026: Speakers

Opening Keynote

Bridgette Hamstead is the Founding Director of Fish in a Tree: Center for Neurodiversity Education, Advocacy, and Activism and Chairperson of the Neurodiversity Coalition of America. She is an AuDHD woman, autistic and ADHD, late diagnosed, and the architect of the Neurodiversity Justice™ Framework, the intellectual foundation guiding this Summit and the movement it serves. An internationally recognized writer, keynote speaker, and activist, she has served as a United Nations panelist for World Autism Acceptance Day and delivered the keynote for Global Neurodiversity Pride Day. She is the author of the forthcoming books The Trouble with Being Good and Neurodiversity Justice: The Definitive Guide to the Framework and the Movement, and she hosts The Trouble With Being Good podcast. Bridgette opens the Summit with a keynote on the future of the neurodiversity justice and liberation movement.

Closing Keynote

Tjerk Feitsma is the founder and director of the Neurodiversity Foundation in the Netherlands. A neurodivergent impact entrepreneur, Tjerk has spent years building solutions aimed at equality and interpersonal understanding across neurodivergent communities. Amsterdam born and trained as a sociologist, he describes his ambition as fast-forwarding a more neuroinclusive society for the generations to come. He has presented actionable plans to the Dutch Parliament aimed at making the nation more neuroinclusive, emphasizing the role of the Platinum Rule in shaping inclusive policy. Tjerk brings an international perspective to the Summit's closing session, addressing neurodiversity justice as the future of the neurodiversity movement worldwide.

NeuroCaster and MC

Doug Blecher founded Autism Personal Coach in 2013 after nearly a decade of working with autistic children, recognizing a gap in support for autistic teens and adults as they age out of childhood systems. He hosts the Autism Stories podcast, where autistic people are treated as the true experts of their own experience, and he founded the Neurodiverse Culture Festival, built around accessibility and a sensory-considerate environment for neurodivergent attendees. Doug serves as the Summit's NeuroCaster and MC, carrying the energy and throughline of the event live across all three days.

Board Member Speakers

Stephanie Bealer is a licensed therapist and counselor whose clinical work centers the lived experience of neurodivergent people. She writes from a neurodiversity affirming framework on her publication Mind Clinic, where her work holds masking as both a neurodivergent experience and a trauma response at once. Stephanie serves on the board of the Neurodiversity Coalition of America and co-hosts The Trouble With Being Good podcast.

Dr. J.D. Neubauer, LMFT, is a neuroqueer therapist practicing with Insight Therapy Group PC. Using they/them pronouns, Dr. Neubauer works at the intersection of neurodivergence and queerness, treating both as a single, integrated way of moving through the world rather than separate threads to untangle. They bring clinical depth and conceptual rigor to their work on the Coalition's board.

Dr. Adam "Dutch" Hazlett is a tenured professor of humanities at Henry Ford College in Dearborn, Michigan, where he has taught for over twenty-five years. He is a Fulbright Specialist in Education, honored in 2025 for his international leadership in universal design and neuro-affirming learning approaches. He holds two master's degrees and a doctorate in humanities, along with certifications in Disability Inclusion and Neurodiversity. Dr. Hazlett founded Humanities 101, an autistic-led organization dedicated to normalizing neurodivergence, and hosts NACHOS, the Neuro-Affirming Conversation Hour for Outreach and Support.

Sierra Grandy, JD, identifies most as an adventurer. She is a professional speaker on neurodiversity, disability, and mental health recovery, and the founder of Questify Your Life, a storytelling studio and creative guild offering gamified coaching, executive coaching for neurodivergent professionals, and corporate team-building sessions run as tabletop role-playing games. She is a licensed attorney in Minnesota and serves on the board of the Neurodiversity Coalition of America.

Raymond Byrnes is a dyslexic professional who recently retired after three decades at one of the Big Four accounting firms. Throughout his career, he brought his identity as a dyslexic person into his professional life, treating his neurodivergent mind as an asset rather than a deficit to manage. He was an active member of his firm's Abilities in Motion Business Resource Group and a key contributor to its neurodiversity sub-group. Raymond serves on the board of the Neurodiversity Coalition of America, bringing decades of institutional insight into how large organizations can be restructured to include and support neurodivergent employees.

Rebecca Tarrant, J.D., is the neurodivergent mother of an autistic child and the founder of Autistic Youth International, formerly Autism Kids. Founded to expand representation, inclusion, and support for autistic and neurodivergent youth in Charlotte-area schools and beyond, the organization has grown from a local mission into one with international partnerships. Rebecca holds a law degree from Northern Kentucky University's Salmon P. Chase College of Law and is the author of The Inclusive ABCs. She serves on the board of the Neurodiversity Coalition of America.

Featured Guests

Dr. Angela Kingdon is an autistic advocate, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and co-founder of the Autistic Culture Podcast Network, a creator co-operative that has passed one million downloads. A late-diagnosed autistic woman with a PhD in communications, she hosts The Late Diagnosis Club and explores the language, values, traditions, and identity of Autistica across the network's shows. She is the author of Am I Actually Autistic? Your Guide to Processing the Identity Shock of Late Autism Discovery and Living Unmasked. Dr. Kingdon's podcast network produces The Trouble With Being Good.

Michelle Mahoney is a neurodivergent activist, writer, educator, and disability advocate. She is the author of Strange Fellow Bobby: The Neurodivergence of Robert F. Kennedy, Sr., a retrospective identification of the elder Kennedy's probable autism told through narrative storytelling and the lived experience of autistic people rather than clinical description. Michelle speaks at the Summit on the importance of identifying neurodivergent historical figures and retrospective identification as an act of justice against disability erasure.