Where this all started.

Yaseen started swimming competitively at the age of 7. In high school he started to discover his true appreciation for the sport and all it had to offer. By the time he graduated high school, he was a national team rostered athlete, American record holder, and an 8x All American. Following his graduation, he went on to represent the United States at the 2023 Para Pan American Games. Yaseen came home with 4 medals , including gold in the 100 backstroke. The following year he was named to his first Paralympic team, and represented the United States at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. Inspired by all the lessons and amazing connections he made during his time training and competing for Paris, he founded The Ripple Affect Foundation in 2025.

Jack had his leg amputated at 9 years old but found freedom in the water. That freedom led him to become a Team USA Paralympian and three time Para Pan-American Games silver medalist. He became the first athlete with a disability to qualify for state swim meets under able-bodied standards in Illinois and Colorado, and went on to represent the United States at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. Now retired from sport, Jack works in sports broadcasting and as a professional speaker.

Darren began swimming at 7 years old with his local club team before continuing through high school competition. During the pandemic, he transitioned to cross country and track, where he quickly found the same sense of discipline and community that originally drew him to swimming. He earned multiple state-level finishes across both sports before stepping away from competition after high school. Since then, Darren has completed the Los Angeles Marathon and recently moved to San Francisco to begin his career in wealth management. Outside of work, he enjoys live music, fitness, travel, and exploring new cities.

Maryam grew up playing a wide variety of sports before finally settling on soccer as her primary passion. Maryam is a Division I soccer player at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC), studying on a pre-dental track, and was most recently was called up to represent the Egyptian National team. She is driven by her love for sport and more importantly her desire to help others and share the opportunities she's received with as many people as possible.

Alexi started gymnastics at the age of 6. Son of two-time Olympian, Alexander Shostak, young Alexi inherited a family legacy of gymnastics. He fell in love with the freedom of bouncing on a Trampoline. To him it’s the closest you can get to flying. At the age of 15, he wanted to take his sporting career to ‘new heights'. He moved away from his family & friends to Lafayette, Louisiana where he currently trains under his current coach - Dmitri Poliaroush. With Olympic dreams in sight, Alexi ramped up his training and quickly earned a spot on the Senior National Team in 2012. Alexi missed his spot on the Olympic team in 2016 but continued forward and competed at his first games in 2020+1, & 2024 respectively. He earned numerous World Titles competing at several World Cups & World Championships along the way. Alexi is also the head trampoline coach at his local gym - Trampoline & Tumbling Express. His greatest joys are to lead and inspire the future generations to pursue what they love, just as he continues to do.

Asher is the oldest of three brothers, all three of whom compete in gymnastics at the national level. He got into the sport at age 5, and has gone on to have one of the most decorated careers in recent American gymnastics history. Asher is a two-time U.S. all-around champion (2023, 2025), a 2024 Olympic team bronze medalist, and a 2023 World Championships team bronze medalist. At Stanford, he's a 12-time NCAA All-American who helped lead the Cardinal to national championships — winning individual national titles on parallel bars, still rings, and vault along the way.

Ben was adopted from China in 2004 and developed a love for swimming at an early age. After spending many summers competing on local swim teams, he discovered paraswimming and went on to represent Team USA for five years. Today, Ben remains active in the adaptive sports community as both a participant and advocate for adaptive mountain biking in his hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, where he works to expand opportunities for athletes of all abilities while currently enrolled in medical school.

Jesse Grupper grew up in New Jersey and started climbing at age six, as a kid with so much energy he was, in his own words, "literally bouncing off the walls". By nine, he was competing nationally. By thirteen, he discovered a second passion: helping children with disabilities participate in the sport. That experience working with kids with physical disabilities at a nonprofit is what pointed him toward mechanical engineering, a degree he went on to earn at Tufts University, later continuing his work at the Harvard Biodesign Lab. He made it his priority to make climbing accessible to everyone around him by designing equipment that improves movement and dexterity in people who struggle with it. On the competitive side, 2022 was a breakout year, with five medals on the IFSC World Cup circuit in bouldering and lead. In 2023, he won gold at the Pan American Games in Santiago in boulder and lead, earning his spot on the Olympic team. He represented the United States at the 2024 Paris Olympics, doing it all while managing a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, a chronic intestinal disease, that he's navigated throughout his climbing career.

Dr. Stephanie Tow, MD is an Associate Professor in the University of Colorado Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R) Department and holds appointments in Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine and the Orthopedics Institute - Sports Medicine Center at Children’s Hospital Colorado. She is quadruple board-certified by the American Board of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation in PM&R, Sports Medicine, Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine, and Brain Injury Medicine. Growing up as a multi-sport athlete, she started swimming competitively at the age of 8 with her summer swim club Cedar Hill in NJ, and then eventually swam year-round with her summer club and local YMCA. Since Stephanie is the oldest child of 4 swimmers in her family, her father became a seasoned swim official who would have Stephanie and her siblings watch videos of stroke biomechanics and wasn’t afraid to disqualify them during meets (of course only when there was an infraction - he was very fair). This, along with the impacts of sports injuries on an athlete’s life, spurred her career interests in sports medicine and biomechanics later in life. Stephanie swam all 4 years for her high school varsity swim team, playing an important role with her teammates in leading their team to win the NJ State Championships her senior year. Later in life, she also competed in sprint triathlons. Now a physician, she focuses much of her career on the sports medicine care of athletes with all abilities and medical conditions. An internationally-recognized leader in Para sports medicine, Dr. Tow serves as Head Team Physician and Medical Director for U.S. Paralympics Swimming, and also as a Paralympics Swimming National Medical Classifier. She also has extensive experience providing sports medicine support as a team physician, medical director, and in other capacities for many other sports, teams, and organizations. As a former athlete and sports medicine physician, she strongly supports grassroots programs that provide sporting opportunities for all and allow everyone to gain the benefits of sports participation.