Meet Our Board of Directors
Galilee Damiao, MS OTR/L
Founding President and Director
Galilee is grateful to collaborate with individuals who type to communicate, their families, and colleagues, to answer the call she has been hearing in her practice—the call for a world of greater support and understanding for these remarkable individuals who use Assistive Technology (AT) text supports.
Galilee earned a Master of Science in Occupational Therapy from Sage Graduate School, graduating magna cum laude in 2002. She spent the formative years of her career in the field of sensory integration. Once Galilee was inroduced to the world of AT text based supports she has been on a wonderous journey ever since. She is a Wellspring Guild-trained text-based AT coach and a Trainer in Training.
She is the owner of Accessible Expression Therapies, an Occupational Therapy private practice dedicated to providing AT communication support to individuals with complex communication needs, along with their families and teams. Galilee teaches alongside self-advocates, believing that individuals who use AAC to communicate are the best experts on their own experiences—and the most powerful teachers when it comes to showing us how to provide the supports they need.
In her daily work, Galilee is continually inspired by the extraordinary stories of triumph she witnesses. She feels deep gratitude for the privilege of accompanying these remarkable individuals on their complex and beautiful journeys of unlocking potential.
Jennifer Terranova MA, OTR/L
Treasurer of the board of directors
Jennifer Terranova is an Occupational Therapist who is a an Assistive Technology text-based communicatin support practitioner. more info coming soon...
John Damiao, PhD, MS, OTR/L
Secretary to the Board of Directors
Dr. John Damiao is an awarded occupational therapist and academic leader with a research focus on enhancing mobility and quality of life for individuals with disabilities. He earned his PhD in Health-Related Sciences from Virginia Commonwealth University.
John is the Chairperson of the Graduate OT Program at Pace University College of Health Professions and a tenured associate professor.
John is a significant contributor to the field of occupational therapy. His work includes peer-reviewed research journal articles, textbook chapter contributions, clinical publications, and conference presentations at the state and national levels. He invented and spearheaded the development of the 'indieGo', earning a $1.25 million Google Impact Challenge Disabilities Grant to develop a device that transforms manual wheelchairs into power wheelchairs. His research on pressure injury prevention, assistive communication, and assistive technology has earned widespread recognition.
He has received several honors, including the Pace University College of Health Professions Dean’s Award for Outstanding Teaching and induction into the Dominican College Alumni Hall of Achievement. John also consults as a statistician for several OT programs.
In addition to his academic and research endeavors, Dr. Damiao has a love for music. Inspired by the lyrics of AC users, he collaborates with them on musical arrangements for the Spelled-Our-Songs project. He also enjoys volunteering at the Fellowship Community, a retirement community, and presenting his musical projects at Threefold Educational Foundation community events.
Jonathan Polanco
Assisted Communication leadership Trustee
Jonathan Polanco is 19 years old, he is a student at his local public high school taking regents classes. Jonathan has taught guest lectures at Dominican University for 3 years, and Pace University Occupational Therapy Graduate Program, he presented a workshop at AOTA National Occupational Therapy Annual Conference in Orlando Florida and was a panelist at the Hillibrand Autism Symposium in NYC.
Jonathan is relentless in his quest to have others from the non speaking, minimally speaking and unreliably speaking community have access to appropriate Assistive Technology supports. he expresses
"being able to communicate through typing has given me a real life. Before I was able to type, I was simply existing. No one knew me, no one thought that I even had feelings. No one knew how intelligent I was. I really lived alone in my head...The real pain of the situation is that lots of times I think that if only I could save individuals from going through what I went through. I do really feel that there is a way to move the mindset forward. That way is through opening a dialog. It is through having real conversations with individuals like me and individuals like you. It is through just seeing the humanity in one another.”
Mathew Wambua
Parent Leadership Trustee
MATHEW M. WAMBUA is an affordable housing practitioner and public servant, recognized as a leading figure within the field of public benefit real estate finance[1][2][3][4]. Among other acknowledgments, Mr Wambua has been recognized as: Commercial Observer's "2024 Power Finance's 50 Most Influential Players in Commercial Real Estate Finance"; City & State's "2022 Real Estate Power 100"; New York Observer's "2011 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate".
Mr. Wambua currently serves as Vicechair of Merchants Capital (https://merchantscapital.com, NASDAQ: MBIN), where he has played a primary role in establishing one of the nation's leading multifamily affordable housing financing platform. Merchants Capital provides Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and FHA debt products, as well as balance sheet bank lending and tax credit equity investment. In 2013, Mr. Wambua transitioned from a career in government, to a career in public benefit finance. Towards that end, Mr. Wambua went to The Richman Group, where he was charged with launching an affordable housing debt platform as President of Richmac Funding. In 2016, Richmac Funding merged with PR Mortgage to form Merchants Capital, which over a short period of time, has evolved into one of the nation's top affordable housing financing platform: #1 Freddie Affordable Lender(2023)[5], #5 Fannie Affordable Lender (2023)[6]; #2 Overall National Affordable Housing Lender by Volume(2022)[7]. From 2020 through 2023, Merchants Capital provided approximately $27BB in financing.
Merchants’ products include Immediate financings, Forward takeouts, and short-term/long-term loans for refinancings, acquisitions, bridges, construction rehab, and new construction. Merchants provides taxable and tax-exempt cash and bond credit enhancement debt facilities. Eligible affordable housing projects include private or public properties, which are LIHTC, Section 8, workforce, mixed-income, LURA, or NOAH developments. Merchants' debt facilities typically consist of complex structures, which require multiple public and private debt and equity counterparties, including banks, HFA's, public housing authorities, equity syndicators and investors.
In March 2011, Mr. Wambua was appointed Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), the nation’s largest municipal housing agency, with a workforce of more than 2,000 employees and an annual budget of approximately $1.2 billion. HPD served as the primary steward of Mayor Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan (NHMP), which called for the creation or preservation of 165,000 units of affordable housing. During his tenure, Mr. Wambua oversaw the financing of approximately 47,000 housing units, representing a $6 billion investment. HPD exceeded annual production targets despite an adverse fiscal climate in which the annual budget was cut by over $90MM per year. Additionally, Mr. Wambua led a number of special initiatives, including: Refinancing the preservation of the City's largest multifamily middle-income housing development, Coop City; Financing the construction of Hunter's Point--the largest new affordable housing development since Coop City; Doubling the annual production of supportive housing units; Recrafting and legislatively reauthorizing J-51, the first significant reform of the J-51 program since the 1990’s; And launching HPD’s first MWBE initiative, aimed at expanding opportunities for MWBEs to engage as developers and contractors on HPD sponsored/financed projects.
Mr. Wambua has served on numerous Board of Directors over the course of decades, including Merchants Capital (Vicechair), The Osborne Association (Chair), the Metropolitan Museum of New York--the MET (Chair of External Affairs Committee), New York Housing Conference (Chair), Settlement Housing Fund(Vicechair), NYC Housing Development Corp (Chair), NYC Residential Mortgage Insurance Company (Chair), New York City Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC), Samaritan Village, The Procurement Policy Board of NYC, Mid Bronx Desperados Development Corporation (MBD), the Center for New York City Neighborhoods (CNYCN), Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, the New York City Housing Partnership, the NYC Empowerment Zone Corporation (proxy for Deputy Mayor Doctoroff), NYC Economic Development Corporation (proxy for DM Doctoroff), and the NYC Industrial Development Corporation (proxy for DM Doctoroff).
Mr. Wambua earned a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University and a BA from UC Berkeley. He has taught real estate finance at NYU’s Graduate School of Public Service and managerial economics at the New School’s Graduate School of Public Policy.
In addition to the above-referenced positions and accomplishments, Mr. Wambua has held a number of positions within the affordable housing and real estate sectors.
From 2008 through 2011, Mr. Wambua served as Executive Vice President of the New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC), the most prolific multifamily bond issuing entity in the nation. HDC ranks as the third largest affordable housing lender nationally, and over the course of the last decade, has issued more than $11 billion in tax-exempt and taxable bonds to finance Mayor Blomberg's Affordable Housing Plan, as well as provided more than $1 billion in direct capital subsidies to increase long-term affordability.
From 2004 through 2008, Mr. Wambua was Senior Policy Advisor to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where he coordinated and oversaw a citywide portfolio of economic development agencies, boards and commissions, as well as oversaw all economic development initiatives within the Bronx and Upper Manhattan.
Previously, Mr. Wambua held positions as the Vice President for Special Projects at the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC), and as a Senior Investment Officer for General Electric Capital Commercial Real Estate.
[1] https://commercialobserver.com/power-series/2024-power-finance/
[2] https://commercialobserver.com/2023/04/merchants-capitals-mathew-wambua-affordable-housing/
[3] https://www.cityandstateny.com/power-lists/2022/02/2022-real-estate-power-100/361829/
[4]https://commercialobserver.com/2011/05/the-power-100-2/
[5] https://mf.freddiemac.com/news/2024/20240124-2023-top-lenders-year-highlights
[7] https://www.housingfinance.com/finance/borrowers-lenders-navigate-rising-interest-rates-costs_o