Emma Collington, a molecular genetics PhD student, and Samantha Fowler, who holds a bachelor of science from UW, have teamed up to create STEM with Disabilities, a project which began after seeing a lack of representation in their field.
Collington says her own experiences served as inspiration for the project. “I have a genetic connective tissue disease that’s really impacted my ability to participate in campus life,” she said. “[I]nspiration for this project kind of comes from growing up with a disability — you don’t have a whole lot of disabled role models.”
Fowler has also completed a master’s in science communication from Laurentian. While completing her undergraduate degree at UW, Fowler was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, major depression disorder, and a panic disorder. She had also been living with an eating disorder. “There was this voice in my head that was like, ‘Go ask for help, go ask for support,’ but I didn’t know what I could actually ask for,” she said.
Collington and Fowler united to create STEM with Disabilities, a project which they hope will help others in similar situations. “I struggled a lot in my undergrad and I felt very alone. So I’m hoping this can help someone else who’s feeling a little bit alone,” Fowler explained.
Both addressed the idea of belonging on campus. “I wouldn’t have said, you know, what [Fowler] and I went through as undergrads could have been called thriving,” Collington said, to which Fowler added, “I would love to see that one day.”
One goal of the project involves putting together a toolkit for students to refer to. “It could be in the form of lists [of various accommodations], tips, tricks, hacks — kind of like what we’ve got going on our website, but [which] could be distributed to accessibility or disability offices at universities,” Collington explained.
Fowler noted that another goal would be “hosting an event for students with disabilities to connect with [each other], to listen to voices of people with disabilities and really find their space in STEM, and really emphasize that inclusion.”
On the topic of equity, diversity, and inclusion, Fowler expressed her concerns that sometimes these initiatives struggle to foster a sense of belonging. “[I]nclusion has to go that step further,” she explained.
Currently, the two are focused on creating visibility when it comes to people with disabilities in STEM. “We want to highlight the everyday disabled scientist — people [for whom] some days are good, but there [are] other days that you just can’t push through,” Collington said. “We want to talk to people who make meaningful and impactful contributions to their field, but who may need a little bit of accommodation or different resources to be able to do that.”
“Visibility of disabled scientists, disabled engineers, people with disabilities — we acknowledge that different people use different types of language,” Fowler continued. “But right now we just want to make them visible, because it’s hard to [work on] advocacy or systemic change if people are not seeing the issue or seeing the amazing people who are doing things.”
Both team members expressed their passion for fostering a space that is created by and for the disabled community. Collington noted that it’s important to consider who the visibility is aimed at. “We’re doing this for us, and for other people with disabilities, to make this supporting network,” she said.
“One thing that I’ve really loved about doing this project is just seeing how possible and accessible the world can be,” Fowler said. “We’re listening to people — like a professor who has changed the height of his lab benches and his biology lab, [and] another professor who [has] standing desks at the back of lecture halls. It’s possible to do so much.”
Looking towards the future, the team hopes to do more advocacy work, aiming to create systemic change. Fowler considered some of these longer term goals: “How can we support better — as current and previous disabled students, and [through] the amazing connections of people we’re talking to — how can we change the landscape of STEM to be more inclusive and work with people with disabilities, and students with disabilities, to help them thrive?”
The two also offered insight into how students and others can get involved in the project. “Send us a message, follow us on social media,” Collington suggested. “We are actively looking for people to profile, and we’re being very generous in our definitions of what constitutes people in STEM. We want to talk to students, we want to talk to people already employed in the field.”
“If any part of this project resonates with you, you are the perfect person to share your story,” Fowler added.
Collington spoke about the profiling process: “One of my favorite things about doing these profiles of people, is [that] we ask them all these questions, and at no point do we ask them about their disability. That’s nowhere in our list of anything, because that’s not necessarily what we want it to be about. We want to talk about the amazing things they’re doing.”
“Everybody’s at a different point in their disability journey,” Fowler explained. “[T]hat also means that everybody is at a different point of disclosing their disability to others.” Regarding labels, Collington said, “[I]f you are wondering if maybe that’s a label or an identity that fits you, I’d say don’t stress about it. It’s absolutely okay. There’s nothing wrong with being disabled. We’re living our lives to the fullest that we can.”
“Be kind to yourself,” Fowler continued. “We grow up in a society that is ableist, so we all — to different degrees — have ableist thoughts, have ableism ingrained in ourselves. Be okay asking for accommodations, be okay asking for small changes … Interrogate your internalized ableism.”
Collington questioned why support and accessibility are still so often missing and needing to be pushed for when there are so many people that would benefit from these services. “It would be really great if in conversations about disability on campus, we could move beyond this idea of visibility,” she said. “We need to start talking about accessibility and disability in our everyday conversations because people don’t realize that [they’re] very close to disability. Everybody at some point in their lives will experience it.”
For more information, visit stemwithdisabilities.com.
