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Speaker: Mentoring students with disabilities
in research experiences.
Richard Ladner: : My name is Richard Ladner.
I'm the principal investigator for AccessComputing,
an NSF-funded project with the goal of increasing
the participation and success of students
with disabilities in computing fields.
Every summer, we support students
in the Computing Research Association's Distributed
Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.
Many of these students continue their research
and go on to graduate school.
Erin Howard: Hi, everyone.
My name is Erin Howard.
I use she and they pronouns, and I
am a student at Western Washington University.
I applied a lot of statistical analysis via Python
to programmatically pre-classify over 275,000 light curves
from stars in the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
database.
Emelia Beldon: Hi.
My name is Emilia Beldon, and I am from Gallaudet University.
The project is about improving live captioning
and teleconferencing, like Zoom, Hangouts, and Meet.
When I first saw the project, I thought, yes,
what better than to help improve the accessibility
of the deaf community and those who need access?
For me, mentors were what helped me be successful
in computing and the IT field.
They have disabilities themselves.
They can't hear, can't speak, but that didn't stop them
from being successful.
Brianna Weimer: Hi.
My name is Brianna Wimer, and I am currently a student
at the University of Alabama.
My disability is ADHD.
And so just for me, it's helped me
develop a passion of what I want to work in
and develop that kind of determination behind it.
My project over the summer was basically
about making a biofeedback game that
increases emotional regulation through respiration techniques
and uses positive reinforcement.
Erin: The advice I'd give to research mentors working
with students who have a disability,
be patient and be kind of aware of their situation.
Emelia: Also, be sure to check in with the student frequently
and make sure they have access to information
as well as be able to communicate.
Brianna: Take your time with them.
Allow them to open up to you about it.
Don't kind of push for it.
Just allow them to get close enough to you.
Because when they do, they will feel comfortable enough
to talk to you about their disability
and talk to you about what they need
as a student with disability to help them.
And then once you know that information,
you can help them to the best of your abilities.
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