Membership Committee

Rae Nelson is a gap year parent, author, and researcher. She is co-author (with Karl Haigler) of The Gap-Year Advantage: Helping Your Child Benefit from Time Off Before or During College (2005) and Gap Year, American Style; Journeys toward Learning, Serving and self-Discovery (2013). She is recipient of the 2020 Advancing the Gap Year Movement Award. She serves on the GYA Board of Directors. Rae has held leadership positions in education policy and practice including serving at The White House as Associate Director for Education Policy and as Vice President/Executive Director of the Center for Workforce Preparation, a not-for-profit affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She has a B.A. in English from Cornell University and a M.A. in Public Policy and Communications from The American University.

Sandy Storer has professional experience as a family therapist, school social worker, transition specialist, and pre-college coach, Sandy has an extensive history of helping young adults find, and flourish, on their path. She has worked in clinical, public school, and university settings and has a particular interest in the challenges involved in the transition to college. Sandy grew up in a family where weeks-long backpacking trips and traipsing about in a Volkswagen camper were the norm. She learned to be comfortable with the unknown, planning on the fly, and solving problems with whatever was at hand. In 2003, seeking to provide that same spirit of adventure for her family, she led her own children (ages 7, 10, and 13) on a gap semester in Central America. It was a pivotal time for her family, collectively and individually. In 2013, Sandy used a personal gap year to pursue her interest in photography and find a way to make meaning of her hobby. Sandy now donates her photography services, traveling regularly to Uganda with a youth-led non-profit as both a volunteer photographer and trip co-leader. She cannot imagine her life today without the gains from these gap experiences and enthusiastically encourages others to give one a try!