DeAnna Pursai holds a Master’s in Education Policy Analysis in the School of Education from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an undergraduate degree in Elementary and Special Education from Purdue University. DeAnna has named as a CNN Hero in April, 2022. She was the recipient of the 2023 Boy Scouts of America Silicon Valley Character Award, and she was named a 2023 Women Making Herstory recipient this past March for State Senator Dave Cortese’s District 15. She has been named an Architect of Change on the Maria Shriver blog DeAnna is active in the downtown Rotary Club of San Jose, as the Chair of the Rotary Neurodivergent Youth Empowerment Fund, and serves as the Rotary District 5170 Rotary Climate Action Council Chair, and as the Rotary mentor to the Rotaract Club at San Jose State University. She proudly served 6 years as a board member of Christmas in the Park. She is big sister to Angel Ellenberger, who happens to have Down syndrome and is an exquisite actress, entertainer and comedian. One of DeAnna’s bucket list items is to give a TED Talk on the subject of how to innovatively cast a wider higher education net to include adults with differing abilities who historically have not had access to higher education.