Women with Disabilities in Academic Careers

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SPEAKER: Women with disabilities
in academic careers.

SHERYL BURGSTAHLER: I'm Sheryl
Burgstahler, PI and director

of Access Advance,
a project hosted

by the University
of Washington where

we are working to
increase the participation

and advancement of women with
disabilities in academic STEM

careers.

CECILIA ARAGON: My
name is Cecilia Aragon.

I'm a faculty member
at the University

of Washington in Seattle.

And I am a Latina and the
first Latina full professor

in the College of Engineering.

My disability occurred after I
had already been a professor.

SHIRI AZENKOT: My
name is Shiri Azenkot,

and I'm an associate
professor at Cornell Tech.

Having a disability has
given me a unique perspective

on problem solving.

I've had to learn
how to communicate

my needs to other people in a
way that is not intimidating.

I have a visual impairment.

It would really help me if
you could do the following.

ELAINE SHORT: My
name is Elaine Short.

I'm an assistant professor
at Tufts University

in the Computer
Science Department.

I have a rare form of muscular
dystrophy, an adult onset

form of muscular
dystrophy, which means

I have a mobility impairment.

For me right now,
the big challenges

are around travel and
also just generally sort

of physical
inaccessibility of spaces.

Do the automatic door openers
work on all the buildings?

Really being strategic
around what travel I do,

where I travel to, and
how I do travel so that I

am involved in my community.

One of the best places to
network is at grant meetings,

because it's all faculty
and it's often much easier

to get to DC for a
grant meeting than it

is to travel internationally
for a conference.

SHERYL:
How can departments

get started in welcoming
women with disabilities?

SHIRI : Step number one
is just education and awareness

and realizing that
there might be

faculty who have disabilities,
who have specific needs.

CECILIA: The
department chair

has to make a special effort to
make assistant professors feel

welcome, especially if they
have an invisible disability.

They often end up putting
in hours of extra work

just to be able to create
the illusion that they

are fully-abled.

If the disability services
office is funded centrally

and there is no cost
to the department,

then the department
chair thinks,

oh, I want my staff to be
as productive as possible

and there's no cost to me.

SHERYL: Explore
practices that can make faculty

careers more equitable for
women with disabilities

at uw.edu/doit/programs/advance.

SPEAKER: Access advance is
funded by the National Science

Foundation, grant numbers
HRD-2017017 and HRD-2017054.

Any questions, findings, and
conclusions or recommendations

expressed in this material
are those of the author

and do not necessarily
reflect the views

of the federal government.

Copyright 2022.

Permission is granted
to copy these materials

for educational
non-commercial purposes

provided the source
is acknowledged.

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