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Local doctors Jeffrey Simmons and Yolangel Hernandez Suarez have made a $2 million gift to FIU to establish the Simmons+Hernandez Suarez Fellowship Program at FIU Embrace.
The fellowship will support professionals who take an interdisciplinary approach to solving the complex and multi-faceted issues facing adults with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. One and two-year fellowships will combine research and clinical work with leadership training to help prepare the next generation of leaders for organizations focused on the developmentally disabled. The program also will work to create evidence-based models for “systems of care” to support developmentally disabled adults as they seek to become more fully engaged community members.
For the donors, the mission of FIU Embrace is very personal: Hernandez Suarez, the vice president for clinical innovation at Conviva Care Solutions, and Simmons, a cardiologist and an executive at Humana, have two children who are participants in FIU Embrace. The two doctors are former faculty members of the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine and among the founders of FIU Embrace.
FIU Embrace is one of the only university-based programs in the nation to promote the health, wellness and overall functioning for adults with neurodevelopmental disorders. Started in 2012, the program works to develop a model to integrate adults with developmental disabilities as full participants in the community.
