Career Scientists who are Disabled

Role models

   If you are a student interested in science and have a disability, you may never have met an adult scientist with a disability.  Below are a few examples of the kinds of things that scientists with disabilities are doing for a living.  Can you see yourself in one of these careers?

Career Examples : a engineer, a science museum exhibit planner, a computer scientist, a biologist, a physicist.

For more information on scientific careers, contact: rmankin@gainesville.usda.ufl.edu 

CAREER STORIES OF SCIENTISTS WITH DISABILITIES

Name:  Ron 

Job title:  Principal Engineer, Failure Analysis Laboratory 

  This job is scientific detective work.  I investigate the causes of failure in electronic equipment used in aircraft, space, and military systems. The tools I use include optical and electron microscopes, x-ray, thermal and ultrasonic imaging equipment,  electronic test instrumentation, and computer software.  Most of the engineers in the laboratory are very experienced, but we do have younger people and company paid training is available. 

Disability: Total deafness at age eight from spinal meningitis. 

Career Path:  After losing my hearing, I spent 6 years at a residential school for the deaf  then I was mainstreamed through college and obtained a Master's Degree in Engineering Physics.  My first job was in automotive electronics. Subsequently, I have worked in a variety of space and aircraft design and study programs.  This is a volatile industry and adaptability is a requirement for survival.  On the plus side, it offers exciting assignments and the opportunity for broad experience 

Accommodations and Adaptive Technology:   I use sign language interpreters and CART interpreters for meetings.  I use a TTY and the relay system for business calls.   Most of the in-house training films are close-captioned. 

Comments:   The engineering field is how vastly more hospitable to the deaf professional than when I started my career in the early 60's.  Email, the Internet, and the adaptations I mentioned above make a big difference.  However, the deaf engineer must still develop appropriate communication and social skills to function effectively with hearing peers. 

Name:  Betty 

 Job Title:  Exhibit Planner (science museum exhibits)

Disability:  Orthopedic

  Career Path:  I have always loved observing things - particularly live things. After surgery, when I was in a plaster cast and couldn't walk at all, I would trap insects (usually flies and moths) in an inverted drinking glass and watch them. A neighbor boy brought me things from the unreachable outdoor world - praying mantises, tadpoles, grasshoppers. When I was a little more mobile, I got myself to a nearby empty lot, where I spent hours looking at the plants and the behavior of the local wildlife (ants, bees, butterflies, beetles, etc.). I discovered science in high school, majored in chemistry in college and specialized in biochemistry in graduate school.  I did biochemistry research for many years. After a while, I found myself wanting to share the fun and excitement of doing science with others - especially kids, and MOST especially, kids with disabilities. A science museum is the ideal place for that, and that's where I work now. I'm an exhibit planner at The Boston Museum of Science. 

 Accommodation and assistive technology:  I use a leg brace and canes. For distances, especially getting around my workplace, which is a large science museum, I use a three-wheel scooter.

Comments: Planners are responsible for the content of an exhibit: what an exhibit says and how it says it. We do research on the topic, consult with experts where necessary, work with exhibit designers on the "look and feel" of the exhibit, and write the labels. I try to plan exhibits that tweak people's interest by offering them multi-sensory choices of activities to do. That way, there is something for everyone, regardless of his/her ability, interest, or level of sophistication.  As an exhibit planner, I can combine my interest in science education and exhibit access. And - I get paid to learn interesting things and share them with our visitors. Not bad!!

 Name:  Kimiko 

Job Title:   Emeritus Senior Research Scientist 

Computer Science and Mathematics Division 

Disability: Polio, presently Post Polio Syndrome 

  Career Path:  In the second year in my studies at the University, I contracted polio.  It was a very severe case, and I was paralyzed from the neck down.  The doctors did not expect me to ever  walk again.  However, after two  years of rehabilitation in the hospital, I was walking. 

Some years later, I found myself as a single mother with two small children to support and without a college degree.   From a wise friend's advice I went back to the University to get a teachers degree.  I choose a home-economics degree which I thought would be easy enough for me to finish.  In the second year, the University president called me into  his office and advised me to change the major to a science field.  He told me that I would have a better future.  I liked mathematics and science so I changed to a mathematics major.  For my graduate work, I was invited to study at the Statistics Department of Virginia  Polytechnic Institute with a fellowship. 

  Since my graduation with M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, I have been working at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the past 35 years.  My work primarily concerns solving problems of a statistical nature and consulting with fellow research scientists.  I retired at the end of 1994, but  I still conduct research at the laboratory and publish articles. 

Accommodation and assistive technology:  My building has an electric door for my use.  I use leg braces, crutches, and an electric wheelchair. 

Comments:  I am a Japanese-American, so I am considered as a triple minority.  While I was in school, I had some physical problems, but they did not interfere with my studies.  The most barriers I have faced in my entire career has been being a woman more than being disabled.  Since 1978, I noticed some change in my physical conditions, and  I was diagnosed as having post polio syndrome almost 10 years later.  I have been using an electric wheelchair since 1990.  There have been many barriers and I had to take a stand on many of those issues.  I learned that one must stand on his or her principles when it is important,  but one must also be selective in taking the problem.  Most of the time, one must be creative and do the best they can, then problems can be solved.  With higher education, one has more freedom to work, and opportunities  that occur.  To solve an unsolved mathematical problem is very  exciting and fascinating work. 

 Name:  Richard 

Job Title:  Biologist 

This job involves the development and implementation of new ways to detect hidden infestations of insects. For example, subterranean pests that attack turf or tree roots, or stored product pests that feed inside grain kernels or wheat stalks, or termites that can consume the insides of your house.  I use acoustic and electronic instrumentation, computers, and specialized computer software.  The job requires a knowledge of insect biology and behavior, physics, and computers. 

Disability: Orthopedic 

Career Path:  As far back as I can remember, weather, mechanical things, telephones, TV's, bugs, and how they operated were very intriguing.  I knew I was going to be a scientist by about the age of 8.  It didn't matter that "disabled students aren't supposed to do careers in science."  Fortunately, I had a supportive high school counselor who let me take almost all the science courses the high school offered.  By the time I reached graduate school, biophysical research was my major interest, and my first real job dealt with the application of biophysics to practical problems of monitoring insect populations.  Since then, I have worked on many different projects that apply physics, chemistry, ecology, and a knowledge of insect behavior to problems of insect detection and control. 

Accommodations and Adaptive Technology:  Leg braces, crutches 

Comments:  Learning and applying what you learn to solve practical problems can be a richly rewarding experience.  If you are curious about how things work, and have an interest in solving practical problems, you will enjoy a career in science. 

Name: John 

Title: Professor of Physics 

Disability: Blind 

Career Path:  Although I was congenitally blind in one eye, had cataracts and glaucoma, I was able to lead a normal life until age 48.  In 1988 a usually minor eye operation for glaucoma had serious complications, and I lost my sight entirely.  I have continued to teach physics and to direct a research program in experimental materials physics.  The most substantial change in my career has been the development of a new research area on access to scientific information by people with print disabilities. 

Accommodations and Adaptive Technology:  I use a computer screen reader and a white cane. 

Comments:  I formed the Science Access Project in 1993 and have directed research and development of a number of new universal access technologies,  several of which are expected to be introduced widely within the next few years.  For information about past and current Science Access Project research, see http://dots.physics.orst.edu