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Every Friday, we choose an alum who has been making headlines—for better or for worse.
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7/8/11: Matan Koch ’02

By the staff | 1:02pm January 03 2012

By the time Matan Koch ’02 graduated from Yale at age 20, he had “educated this campus and had a significant impact on improving accessibility,” the director of the college’s Office for Students with Disabilities said in a write-up on “Graduating Yale Seniors with Exceptional Stories to Tell.”

But Koch, a quadriplegic religious studies major who wrote two senior essays—one on Judaism and disability, the other on the history of people with disabilities at Yale—was just getting started. He picked up his law degree at Harvard, worked at Procter & Gamble and now at the New York law firm Kramer, Levin, Naftalis, & Frankel, and continued his advocacy for people with disabilities.

On that last subject Koch, who was born with severe cerebral palsy, has now gained a famous ear: that of President Barack Obama, who announced on July 5 that he will nominate Koch for the National Council on Disability.

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