Location: Georgetown University/NIH, Washington DC
Twitter: @meganmajocha,
LinkedIn: Megan Majocha
Tell us about your background?
I am third generation deaf, and I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA. My parents are deaf, and my sister and brother are CODA (Children of Deaf Adults). I attended Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf and Plum Senior High School. I had an interpreter while attending Plum for half of the day, and most of my classes at Plum were science-related! I went to Gallaudet University and graduated with a B.S. degree in Biology in 2018. I was a part of the Deaf Scientist Training Program in the Hunter Lab during my one-year post-baccalaureate fellowship at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), right after graduation. After completing my fellowship in 2019, I joined the Georgetown/NIH Graduate Partnership Program to do my PhD in Tumor Biology.
How did you get to where you are?
I have always loved science and knew I wanted to do something with science, but I didn’t decide which field until college. I enjoyed genetics, and it was my favorite undergraduate class. I did a summer internship at Magee Women’s Research Institute studying reproductive biology after my first year of undergrad. I realized I loved doing basic science research, so I started leaning toward finding opportunities in the biomedical sciences field. It wasn’t until my post-baccalaureate fellowship at the NCI that I became intrigued by cancer research. Genetics is involved in cancer, and I was able to use my genetics knowledge which was a bonus for me! I knew I wanted to pursue a higher degree in cancer biology to understand the complexity of cancer and its mechanisms. I loved the freedom to form my research questions and ideas, and knew that going for a PhD is one of the ways to do so.
What is a professional challenge you have faced related to your deafness?
My biggest professional challenge has been finding interpreters who specialize in STEM. They are so hard to find. I was fortunate to meet a few scientifically trained interpreters in the lab at NCI. However, when it was time to start my first year as a PhD student at Georgetown, I was worried about finding qualified interpreters who have some experience in STEM. It was critical that I have consistent interpreters for my classes and lab work throughout the week. I did not want different interpreters assigned to me each day as it would be challenging for them to become familiar with my coursework and research. I wanted to be able to focus on my coursework and research, rather than teaching new interpreters signs and phrases all over again each time. I was fortunate to meet my team of interpreters who picked up science signs and became super familiar with my research, which was helpful. I have about 5-6 preferred scientific interpreters on my list, and I have them on-call full day the entire week, depending on their availability. However, I usually make sure I have two of my primary interpreters available to interpret for critical meetings, like my thesis committee meeting or presentations. The university accommodated me in so many ways, for which I’m very grateful.
What is an example of accommodation that you either use or would like to use in your current job?
I have at least one on-call interpreter in the lab daily from 9-5 pm. Sometimes there are two interpreters, depending on how heavy the meetings are on each day. The interpreters are aware of lab safety requirements prior to interpreting in the lab, and they have their own space in the lab, so they are always accessible. Suppose my colleagues are having a conversation in the lab and the interpreter can cover the conversation, then I am aware of what is being said instead of being left out. I can also use the on-call lab interpreter if I have a last-minute meeting or want to discuss my data with my PI or other lab members.
What advice would you give your former self?
Don’t be afraid to try new things and grab every opportunity given to you. Start networking early by reaching out to people in different fields and learning about what they do. Most importantly, life and work balance!
Any funny stories you want to share?
It was one long, dreadful day and one of my interpreters accidentally signed “farm” instead of “pharm”, which is short for pharmacology. Although they quickly corrected themselves, my interpreter and I still laugh about it to this day.
Deaf and hard of hearing faculty often lack role models or colleagues to talk with about the challenges of navigating a career with hearing loss. This isolation can be pronounced when we work at institutions that serve hearing students. This isolation often results in us developing or failing to develop solutions on our own and, in many cases, reinventing wheels that others have already developed. Broadening the mutual mentoring network of deaf and hard of hearing faculty will reduce our isolation and facilitate sharing of strategies for success. The Mind Hears has been creating community and providing a peer-mentoring platform through our blog posts since 2018. We recently hosted two on-line open house sessions in September 2022 and April 2023 to provide an opportunity for folks to meet and communicate with other deaf or hard of hearing faculty in real time. In this post, we will share what worked well in these sessions and some of the participant feedback.
Some participants form the April open house
Who attended our open house sessions?
We advertised our open house sessions as virtual coffee hour drop-ins on Twitter, The Mind Hears platform itself, Facebook, and LinkedIn. We also emailed invitations directly to some prior blog contributors. We planned the events for 1.5 hours, at a time that we hoped would work for multiple countries. We chose Zoom as the platform and set up the meeting to require pre-registration. Funding for the drop-in sessions was provided through a minigrant from AccessADVANCE, an NSF funded project at the University of Washington to increase the participation and advancement of women with disabilities in academic STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) careers. We had ~15 attendees in September and ~10 attendees in April, including The Mind Hears co-founders, Ana and Michele, and The Mind Hears social media director, Stephanie. The remaining attendees ranged from postdoctoral researchers to administrators to faculty from a variety of institutions in the US and UK
Full communication Access
Our highest priority was ensuring that every person was able to participate fully in the conversations. For the first open house, we provided two ASL (American Sign Language) interpreters and used live auto-captions built into Zoom. The auto-captions did not work well for all accents, and for the April open house we added CART (Caption Access Real Time) transcription along with ASL interpreters and zoom auto-captions. We also made abundant use of the zoom chat features for comments and side conversations. Participants in the more recent session reported a variety of preferences for communication – some preferred the auto-captions, some preferred CART, and some preferred ASL interpreters for the spoken part of the conversations. Even though auto-captions are not as accurate as CART transcription, some preferred auto-captions because it has less lag time than CART and the words can be placed near the video of the person speaking to augment speech reading. This taught us that successful on-line meetings of deaf and hard of hearing people should have both CART and auto-captions along with signed language interpreters.
Another element to providing accessible conversation was to allow pauses during the discussion. This allows interpreters and CART to catch up and gives everyone a bit of time to process language inputs. We did a better job of this in the April open house than the September open house, which had also included more people and a faster paced conversation. When conversation pace was too fast, some folks used the chat function to engage others in side conversations – this meant that there were two conversations going on at once. In the slower paced April meeting, comments added to the chat were incorporated into the main discussion, which allowed everyone to follow the primary conversation.
What people reported getting out of the open house sessions
The participants (~15 in Sept and ~10 in April) attended to find networking opportunities and a chance to share lived experiences and support each other. The sessions were both 90 minutes long and while we invited folks to come and go as their schedule permits, nearly all participants stayed for the entire session. Conversations ranged from transcription software recommendations, to deaf identity, to learning signed languages, etc. Feedback from participants indicated that they felt supported, listened to, valued and optimistic.
Going forward
For both sessions we prepared some question prompts beforehand, but found that conversation flowing naturally after a round of introductions. Participants reported excitement at being able to share conversation topics that were not as readily shared with their hearing colleagues. Future sessions might focus on particular pre-selected topics or spotlight a profiled person. We would also like to increase international participation, which might mean expanding both spoken and signed languages.
We welcome ideas for future topics of discussion in our open houses, or further modifications to content and form. If there is something that you would like to talk about or have other ideas for getting together or creating community please leave comments below.
Thibault Duchemin (left) and Skinner Cheng (right) are the co-founders of Ava, a live automated captioning app.
Live automated captioning has become a growing presence in the lives of many of us who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. From captioning live presentations, to providing transcripts of online meetings, to on-the-go captioning with mobile devices, these AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools continue to improve in accuracy and speed. In the past few years, they have rapidly become a versatile addition to our toolkit of strategies for improved accessibility in academic and other settings.
Thibault Duchemin and Skinner Cheng are the co-founders of Ava, a live automated captioning app with various transcription features, including translation and text-to-speech. The assistive technology is designed to enhance communication in different scenarios such as professional, academic and social situations. As a CODA (child of deaf adult) and a deaf individual, respectively, Thibault and Skinner have close ties to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. We caught up with both of them to learn more about the origins of Ava and their experiences in creating this professional captioning tool. Below, Thibault first shares how Ava got its start, and then Skinner answers our questions about his journey from Taiwan to working with Ava.
Thibault: Backstory & how Ava began…
I grew up the only hearing person in a Deaf family, i.e. a CODA (great movie). My sister wanted to be a lawyer, but with the cost of interpreters to help with closing statements, client meetings, etc. there would be financial issues and communication barriers. I understood the challenge, and wanted to help!
While I was at Berkeley, I started working on “smart gloves” to translate sign language, which stirred a lot of excitement and showed there was a clear need for a communication tool.
After creating a prototype, plus hundreds of hours and bike rides across the Bay Area to meet and talk/sign/write with our potential users, we got some hard-earned learnings during customer development. We kept the mission – to bridge communication gaps between hearing and Deaf worlds – but we pivoted the product.
The pivot was to move to a mobile application that transcribes group conversations using speech-recognition technologies. The goal was 24/7 autonomy that would allow Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing users to understand and participate in group situations, effortlessly. Together, we designed a product that was easy to access in social, academic and professional conversational situations.
In early days, Skinner would go to an isolated space to check his phone at events. Today, in small groups, he uses the app [Ava] to communicate with others, transcending the silence blockade. At lunch and during meetings, we all use Ava to connect with each other.
What was just my personal story now became a team story as we slowly dissolved the communication barriers between each other.
Every day, these simple moments justify the thousands of hours we work to develop and improve this tool. We have a 45-person team (and counting), currently located between San Francisco and Paris. Skinner is a brilliant developer, who is Deaf and an inspiration to us all.
Skinner interview:
1. Tell us about your background? For example, tell us about your hearing loss, your schooling, and/or your family/culture
I was born in Taiwan. I was not born Deaf, but lost my hearing when I was 2-3 years old. My mother told me it was caused by an injection of medicine that I received at a clinic, which contained material that harmed my hearing.
I never received a standard education for Deafness in Taiwan—it is more offered and accepted here in the USA. I was educated by my mother to read lips and also speak. I never learned Sign Language because my mother wanted me to learn how to communicate like hearing people. I attended Deaf school for half of 1st grade, but then my mother enrolled me in a hearing school, so there were no disability accommodations I could rely on.
During primary school, my mother taught me math and other subjects. I started working with tutors one-on-one in high school until I graduated. In college, there were no captions, so I taught myself for the most part.
I usually communicate with my family, friends and colleagues by speaking, but sometimes we communicate through writing, if it’s too complex or difficult to say something clearly. Writing on paper was later substituted with a smartphone, which we often use today.
2. What has been your professional trajectory?
In college and at the university in Taiwan, I studied Computer Science. After graduation, my work was all about coding. I never worked at a large corporate company. I spent several years with a startup, which was later acquired by a medium-sized company.
My job position was always Software Engineer. I took a Senior engineering position 2-3 years before I left Taiwan to move to San Francisco. I studied and received my second Computer Science degree at the University of San Francisco. After graduation, I began working with Ava as Co-Founder and CTO [chief technology officer], and currently spend most of the time working as an Engineer within the company.
3. How did you meet and how did you come together to create Ava?
Many people ask this question—and it’s a fun story, indeed. When I graduated from the University of San Francisco, I was looking for a job, which could sponsor me to stay in the US and in San Francisco, specifically. I saw a post on a bulletin board at the school, which was from Thibault Duchemin and Ava’s COO, Pieter Doevendans. I don’t remember the exact words, but it said they were offering some accommodations (with a machine, or an assistive tool), which would allow Deaf and hard-of-hearing people better means to communicate during job interviews. So, I contacted them. And that was the first time Thibault and I met—in some cafe in downtown San Francisco.
Thibault didn’t know at the time that I was TOTALLY DEAF and he probably overestimated my lip reading ability. So after Thibault spoke for almost 30 minutes, I had to interrupt, and tell him that method of communicating wasn’t working. Eventually, we used my laptop to type and communicate. At that point, I understood they didn’t have the tool built, but wanted to do some user testing.
The second time we met, I met with Thibault and Pieter in another cafe in Millbrae, where we still used the laptop to communicate. I remember onlookers in the cafe were curious and inquired what we were doing. Afterwards, Thibault asked me to come to the University of California, Berkeley, where he described what they wanted to do. He asked me if I could help develop the MVP (minimum viable product) for the Android smartphone—and I did. We moved to San Mateo, launched the startup named Transcense in Boost, which is a startup incubator. After we raised adequate funding, we moved to Oakland. We got an established designer to help us design the company icon, and there you go… Ava was born!
4. Tell us what Ava is; how does it work?
Ava is an assistive tool and technical solution that Deaf and hard-of-hearing people can use—on their smartphones and personal computers—which transcribes what hearing people speak, in one-on-one or group situations. In brief, it’s a communication bridge between Deaf and hard-of-hearing people and hearing people.
5. Does Ava work with multiple spoken languages? How did you choose what languages to invest in?
Yes, Ava does work with multiple spoken languages. However, Ava cannot automatically detect the exact spoken language and switch between the languages just yet. The user has to choose the spoken language, then Ava will accurately transcribe.
We also provide translation, so if people in a conversation speak different languages, they can choose the language they speak, and Ava can translate different spoken languages into the language they can read.
Since our teams are located in the US and France, we focused our primary support on the English and French languages. However, it transcribes many languages and we continue adding more based on user request, the market, or direction from our Sales team.
6. Who is using Ava? What situations are they using it in? The Mind Hears readers are primarily working in academic settings; in what manner is Ava being used in academia?
Deaf and hard-of-hearing people are Ava’s primary users. The DHH community uses Ava when they need to communicate easily with hearing people—when they want to know what someone is saying, and speak if they are unable to voice as clearly as they would like.
In academia, Ava can be used to transcribe speech from instructors or students for anyone who is Deaf or hard-of-hearing, and also for hearing students to have transcriptions of lectures. From personal experience, having captions to understand what a professor or teacher is saying makes the lesson a lot more interesting. Accessible accommodations make a huge difference with understanding and learning.
Ava also provides Scribe service, which merges AI with a human scribe to catch nuances and improve the accuracy of real-time transcription. We also offer CART services—a service I benefited from a lot when I studied at the University of San Francisco. Our mission is to make Deaf and hard-of-hearing peoples’ lives easier and happier in any situation, including academia—that’s why Ava was created.
7. Has knowledge exchange between academia and industry played a role in the development of Ava? Are there any intersections between industry and academia that have been important in your entrepreneurial journey?
Yes, absolutely. A concrete example is that we have a team in France, and they focus on AI and speech, and most of them are researchers in academia. Most of us in the US are engineers and part of industry, and we help convert the team’s ideas into real tools, which help people. The perfect intersection between academia and industry is to make the dream come true.
8. What limitations do you see for Ava? What are the greatest challenges in getting it to work as the tool you envision it being? Where do you see technology like Ava going in the future?
I feel most comfortable using an assistive tool, whether it’s an app or device that I can use autonomously—rather than asking other people in a conversation to set up the application with a smartphone, tablet or laptop. Also, accuracy of speech is always the challenge and something we are constantly improving. Everyone within Ava is aware that the limitations lie in certain situations where there may be background noise or other reasons why accuracy is not 100%. Other companies that offer captions experience the same issues. These are the challenges we want to solve, which will be the greatest of achievements, if we can succeed.
In the future, I envision more of a Utopia, where I can wear glasses, and the caption will show up like a bubble caption attached to the speaker in the screen of my glasses. With such a device, I won’t need to ask another person to set up the device and application. And I’ll know who is speaking, no matter how many speakers there are, so the conversation is clear for me and I can keep pace with a discussion.
Also, I haven’t figured out a way for others to better understand my speaking—I can speak, but it’s unclear. I know a little sign language, but I’m used to speaking, so it would be great if there was a way to make unclear speech more clear.
9. Have you faced any challenges related to hearing-loss on your entrepreneurial journey?
Yes, there have been a lot of challenges. Communication is the pain and hardship. And the side effect of not being able to communicate as one would like is isolation, which makes me feel alone and excluded. I think that’s also why I don’t prefer to work in large companies, because I am sure the situation would be worse. On the other hand, I have been lucky as colleagues I had when I lived and worked in Taiwan accommodated my situation. And here, since I am working with Ava, which aims to help Deaf and hard-of-hearing people, the challenges due to my situation are turning less and less.
10. Do you have any advice for people with hearing loss who might be starting out on their own entrepreneurial journeys?
I was lucky, and my journey is a bit different. However, I think, regardless of any special circumstance or situation, in any stage of the entrepreneurial journey, you should not be alone. It is great if you have people who can empathize, accommodate and understand you. Surrounding yourself with people who are also passionate about the mission and understand why you want to start your entrepreneurial journey will be beneficial.
11. You are both from different countries, and through your work on Ava have likely interacted with deaf/hard of hearing people from many parts of the world. Do you have any insight to share on perceptions of deafness in different parts of the world?
I know disability accommodations are very different in different countries. Luckily, it’s the trend that technologies, including AI, are growing everywhere and have been applied in some modern countries. But for countries that don’t have advanced technology such as the Internet, I think we should try our best to support them by providing more resources.
I moved to the US because accessibility accommodations for Deaf people were better here than in Taiwan. It’s gotten better over the past four decades, but there is still a long way to go.
**In case you are wondering, TMH received no financial compensation from Ava for publishing this interview. We were just really interested to hear their story!
Location: Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University
Field of expertise: Linguistics
Twitter: @nkduggan
Tell us about your background
I grew up with deaf parents and a deaf sister so I was very fortunate to be able to use Irish Sign Language (ISL) at home. One of my favourite memories is my father telling his versions of classic stories such as Three Little Pigs and Red Riding Hood through ISL, which was WAY more fun than reading from the books.
I attended an all-girls deaf school in Dublin. My generation saw the shift from oralism and all hearing teachers on our first day of school, to a growing number of deaf teachers and an acceptance of using ISL in the classrooms. During my school years, most of my teachers did not teach using ISL; but toward my final year I could feel the attitude shift among the teachers from not caring about whether we could understand them if they spoke, to feeling guilty that they had not learned ISL earlier. This was major, considering that my mother, who attended the same school, was punished severely whenever she signed.
The two deaf schools in Dublin were an all-boys school and an all-girls school. My mother, my sister and I attended the girls’ school and my father attended the boys’ school. An interesting history about Irish Sign Language is the use of gendered signs. Because the schools were separate based on gender and there was very little interaction between their pupils, these schools had numerous different signs, sometimes even to a point where it impaired the ability for deaf people of different genders to understand each other (see Le Master, 1997 for more on this). This meant that my mother and my father had different versions of some ISL signs in our household based on their gender, although it must be said that my father used more of the women’s version of ISL signs as there are three women in our family. Truth be told, I had not really appreciated the uniqueness of the language situation in my family until I started my PhD in Linguistics.
How did you get to where you are?
I have a BA degree in Geography, with a focus on Human Geography. My interests during my undergraduate years were the influences of the outside environments on deaf communities and how the communities embraced and/or resisted changes from external influences. I used to want to be a teacher, but during my undergraduate years, I realised that I loved research and wanted to continue doing research, so I decided to apply for a postgraduate course. Because of my interests in the dynamics of deaf communities, I took a MA degree in Community Education, Equality and Social Activism. My research focused on the relation between the Irish deaf community and the ISL recognition campaign; e.g. the deaf community’s access to information provided by the campaigners and whether they understand what the consequences may potentially be once ISL was recognised by the state (which it is now).
I was very fortunate to have a deaf friend who was a PhD student herself. We met up for coffee and I told her I was thinking of pursuing a PhD. She told me to take a break in between my MA studies and my PhD studies to explore what was out there. Looking back on this, I appreciate this advice so much. In the five years gap, I’ve worked in different governmental agencies, advocated for deaf rights and even moved to a different country and learnt two new languages. Because of my experiences, I have a new appreciation for language studies which got me to where I am today, researching multilingualism in deaf migrants in Sweden!
What is a professional challenge you have faced related to your deafness? How have you mitigated this challenge?
During my BA and MA, I tended to work alone the majority of my time and did not really seek the advices of my supervisors. This was for several reasons. The main reason was that it was difficult to get interpreters for either short or spontaneous meetings so I either had to speak with my supervisors or write to them. The second reason, particularly during my Masters, was that I found that I was constantly explaining how the deaf community works, how sign languages work, why certain terms were either appropriate or not appropriate and why I did not choose a particular theory that my supervisor thought would suit the topic best. I felt that the constant explanations ate up supervision time, and left no time to be mentored, so I avoided meeting my supervisor the rest of my Masters. Looking back on my thesis, even though the topic was really interesting, I felt that the lack of mentorship showed in my writing. I also had severe imposter syndrome, which meant that I was afraid to ask her simple questions in case I was seen as that deaf student that did not know anything.
My principal supervisor for my PhD is a deaf signer herself and this helps me immensely not only in dealing with imposter syndrome (I can ask her simple questions without feeling ashamed), but I’ve also learnt that a supervisor is meant to act as a mentor that guides me in my writing and advises me on a wide array of areas. My PhD has been an incredibly emotional journey of reflecting on my past, especially on my school years. For this, I am forever grateful to my current supervisor!
What advice would you give your former self?
Build up a network of deaf students where you can share tips, or even just rant about barriers you’re facing.
Working in Stockholm University where there is a great number of deaf colleagues, I am grateful that I have the opportunity to just rant to others about silly things that we as deaf people often have to face in the university world and I can get advice in how to navigate certain obstacles.
Any funny stories you want to share?
Learning new languages is exciting, especially when you have opportunities to use these new languages. This was the case for me when I moved to Sweden. I have not had the opportunity to use French outside of French classes at school so it was incredibly exciting for me to be able to use Swedish outside of the classroom. However, in order to improve my Swedish, I must use it every day even when I felt that I was not “good enough” in the language. The ä, å and ö letters were difficult for me to differentiate and unfortunately for me, some words can have an entirely different meaning with an ‘ä’ in it than an ‘a’. I’ll give you a real-life example! A common way to sign off an email is “med vänlig hälsning” (“with friendly greeting” would be a direct translation). When I started my job as a civil servant at the local council, there were numerous times I wrote “med vanlig halsning” (“with normal greeting”) … I can just imagine the faces of the politicians reading my emails that signed off with a ‘normal’ greeting!
Reference:
Le Master, B. (1997) Sex differences in Irish Sign Language. In J.H. Hills, P.J. Mistry & L. Campbell (Eds.) Trends in Linguistics. Mouton De Gruyter. Available at this link.
The new year brings a fresh start to our lives; it’s a natural time to reflect on the year past and make plans for the coming year. In what is becoming a The Mind Hears New Year tradition (see posts from 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022), we have updated our list of recommendations for making your workplace accessible and refined the layout of the recommendations. You can view and download the full list of recommendations for making your workplaces (in-person, hybrid and remote) accessible for your deaf and hard of hearing colleagues at this link. Below we provide an outline of the best approaches for increasing workplace accessibility and provide links to blog posts that explore particular aspects in detail.
Universally design your workplace: Our spaces become more inclusive for all when we improve access for any subgroup of our community. Consequently, by increasing the accessibility of our workplaces for our deaf and hard-of-hearing (HoH) colleagues, we create a better workplace for everyone. This includes hearing folks who have auditory processing disorder, use English as their second language, or are acquiring hearing loss during their careers. Chances are that someone in your department has hearing loss, whether they’ve disclosed this or not, and will benefit from your efforts to make your workplace more accessible (see The Mind Hears blog post about where are all the deaf and hard of hearing academics). This is why you should universally design your workplace now and not wait until someone who is struggling asks you to make modifications.
Sharing the work: With a google search you can find several resources on workplace accessibility for deaf/HoH employees, such as the Hearing Loss Association of America’s (HLAA) very usefulemployment toolkit. One drawback of these resources is that nearly all of the suggestions are framed as actions for the deaf/HoH employee. While deaf and hard of hearing academics need to be strong self-advocates and take steps to improve their accommodations, our hearing colleagues can help us tremendously by sharing the work to create accessible workplaces. Speech reading conversations, planning accommodations, and making sure that technology/accommodations work as intended is never-ending and exhausting labor that we do above and beyond our teaching, research, and service. Your understanding and your help can make a large impact. For example, if a speaker doesn’t repeat a question they were asked, ask them to repeat even if you heard the question just fine. The people who didn’t hear the question are already stressed and fatigued from working hard to listen, so why expect them to do the added work of asking speakers to repeat? (see The Mind Hears blog post on listening fatigue). Repeating the question benefits everyone. The changes you make today can also help your workplace align with equal opportunity requirements for best hiring practices (see The Mind Hears blog posts about applying for jobs when deaf/HoH here and here). The Mind Hears coordinated the listing of advice for different academic settings below to help you become better allies today.
One size doesn’t fit all: If a participant requests accommodation for a presentation or meeting, follow up with them and be prepared to iterate to a solution that works. It may be signed interpreters (there are different kinds of signing), oral interpreters, CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation), or Assistive Listening Devices(formerly called FM systems). It could be rearranging the room or modifying the way that the meeting is run. Keep in mind that what works for one deaf/HoH person may not work for another person with similar deafness. And what works for someone in one situation may not work at all for that same person in another situation, even if these seem similar to you. The best solution will probably not be the first approach that you try nor may it be the quickest or cheapest approach; it will be the one that allows your deaf and hard-of-hearing colleagues to participate fully and contribute to the discussion. Reaching the goal of achieving an academic workplace accessible to deaf/HoH academics is a journey.
Want to be a better ally and make your workplace accessible for your deaf and hard of hearing colleagues?Follow this linkto read our list of recommendations. We welcome your comments and suggestions either to this post or directly within the document at this link.
I was born deaf and raised in Maryland to two deaf parents, with a hearing brother, and we grew up utilizing American Sign Language in our household. I attended Maryland School for the Deaf from the age of 2, or 3, and graduated from the school when 18. I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History from Gallaudet University in 2012, and my Master of Arts degree in Anthropology-Archaeology from Texas State University in 2017. I recently received my Certificate in Geographic Information Systems (Spring 2022) from Front Range Community College.
2. How did you get to where you are?
Being deaf, and having two deaf parents who both held affluent positions in the federal government gave me the opportunity to self-acknowledge the potential I could have for my future. My parents both encouraged pursuing a profession I wanted, and to never settle for less. Even though growing up it felt like my only option for a career was to be a deaf teacher, I knew I never wanted to be a teacher at a deaf school because I wanted a profession allowing me to work outdoors.
However, it was not until I was a Sophomore at Gallaudet University when I realized my passion for archaeology while taking an Art History class under Dr. Marguerite Glass (an amazing professor) and “connected the dots” to my upbringing (I was always digging in the backyard, going to museums and historical sites, and loving the Indiana Jones franchise). I was able to go to an archaeology field school in Belize with the Maya Research Program funded by Gallaudet University in the summer before my Senior year. Attending field school confirmed my decision of wanting to go into the archaeology profession. I was the last student at Gallaudet University to receive the Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History, before they closed down the program.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree, I did unpaid internships as well as volunteered at several museums doing collection management to increase my experience in the museum/archaeology professions while working at various employment positions (one of which was at a group home!) to earn money somehow (and I was also on Social Security Disability Income, luckily).
One of the volunteer jobs I did was with a professor (Dr. Ana Juarez) from Texas State University, transcribing funerary ledgers. The internships and volunteer work allowed me to have a list of references in order to apply for the archaeology graduate program at Texas State University, and the professor I volunteered with had also vouched for my skills.
During my graduate program, I was a Graduate Instructional Assistant (GIA), and worked for the Center for Archaeological Studies under a wonderful Director (Dr. Todd Ahlman, who to this day continues to support and encourage my endeavors) doing site mapping and was how I came to learn about Geographic Information Systems. I also did part time work with Dr. Christina Conlee (who was also my thesis chair), doing lithic and ceramic analyses. I learned how to identify minerals within lithic and ceramic fragments, and to recognize the different types of materials.
Because of my GIA employment position, I was able to incorporate GIS in my thesis work and after graduation, volunteered for organizations needing GIS work. I also continue to learn more about lithics from professionals when doing fieldwork, and to increase my education through them.
A full-time job in Archeaology can require first having lots of different short-term positions to establish your expertise. After graduating with a Master of Arts degree in Anthropology-Archaeology, I was not able to immediately be hired for a position in the archaeology profession. I was hired as a Museum Educator for a local museum (Berthoud Historical Society; in Berthoud, Colorado), then a Weekend Visitor Services Coordinator (Denver Firefighters Museum; in Denver, Colorado). Fortunately, a year into living in Colorado, my former supervisor from Center for Archaeological Studies had an archaeology fieldwork project for a contract he needed to have done nearby Denver and hired me on the crew. This opportunity allowed me to increase my fieldwork experience in archaeology but was not enough for me to be hired as a field technician for a Cultural Resources Management (CRM) company, just yet. After the project, I was hired to work for two more museums (WOW! Children’s Museum and Denver Museum of Nature and Science) before finally obtaining an archaeological position working for Colorado Parks and Wildlife as their Cultural Resources Stewardship Technician. Most archaeology positions, like the one I had, are contracted for nine months to a year and do not pay well. So I had to move on and was able to get hired for a CRM company as a field technician. After a while, I applied for a temporary position with Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education under a contract for the US Army Fort Carson doing archaeological collection management (which is where my previous museum experience was handy to have!) and worked nearly a year there. It was, again, another time-limited contract and I had to move on. However, by this time, I had accumulated enough references so that when I reached out to an acquaintance (Chris Sims, @godigahole on instagram/patreon), he was able to get me a position with the CRM company he worked for (PaleoWest). Which led me to my current employment position for the past year, working for the Bureau of Land Management as an Archaeological Technician. I also started part time work for SEARCH as an Archaeologist & Creative Specialist (mainly doing their social media) in March, and this was an incredible opportunity offered because of my public archaeology outreach on my social media accounts.
Being an archaeologist requires a graduate degree if one wants to pursue a position with the possibility of advancing in the profession (unless one wants to stay a field technician). For example, I not only have experience in Archaeology but also in Collection Management (which is museum-related – if I ever wanted to work for the museum industry), and Geographic Information Systems.
3. What is a professional challenge you have faced related to your deafness? How have you mitigated this challenge?
My concern when first starting out was whether I’d be considered for employment positions due to my deafness; most employers, in general, are iffy about communicating with a deaf person.
However, I think the main challenge is to remind myself to not leave the profession due to loneliness as the deaf person in the workforce, and the fact that my coworkers/supervisors do not know American Sign Language. My love for archaeology and passion for this profession, is what keeps me going and motivates me to try my best in finding positions that are a great fit for me.
4. What is an example of accommodation that you either use or would like to use in your current job?
I am able to request ASL interpreters for meetings/lectures through an established system, and utilize a Garmin inreach® satellite communications device when out in the field in case of emergencies. Otherwise, archaeology is usually an individualized profession where I’m able to go out into the field on my own. This means that I can have work-life balance by doing stuff on the weekends with my deaf friends and family members.
5. What advice would you give your former self?
If I had already known what it is I wanted to do (the profession), then to hit the ground running much earlier in life rather than waiting till college to volunteer for opportunities.
6. Any funny stories you want to share?
Archaeologists can be competitive, and the work is often tedious. Being in a great field crew also means ensuring some kind of fun during fieldwork. My favorite memory was when I was out doing fieldwork with a crew, and because the project was a “lithic wonderland” (aka we’d be finding and recording lots of lithic materials) we decided to hold an informal competition in who would find the most projectile points. At the end, one of the crew members held the title with 13 projectile points total and I was in second, with 12. This also made me feel I was exceptional in doing what I do, especially being a deaf person, and that I was just as great an archaeologist as everyone else on the crew.
7. Is there anything else you would like to share?
Perseverance is key. In whatever profession one may have, within a hearing-centric workforce, perseverance is key in moving forward and in learning. Always present your work; develop a website, or mention your previous experience, or connect with people who would advocate for you. Be proud of all you’ve accomplished.
This multi-media autobiographical post by Dr. Stephen Klusza has two parts. Here, in part 1, Stephen shares with us his journey leading up to his decision to get a cochlear implant in graduate school. Part 2 will be released in late August 2021. Part 1 includes a video with song excerpts and images that augment Stephen’s story at the bottom of this page. You can find part 2 at this link.
— Stephen
I was born in the most perfect year, you see.
There was nothing too special about 1978 per se, but some of my most cherished moments were only a few years away. Born in the hazy and humid throes of Florida summer, I was just another toddler trying to make sense of the world around me. Around then, my parents grew increasingly concerned when I was not attempting to talk like other kids my age, but they were assured that some kids took longer than others to communicate. When I was 2½ years old, they knew something was wrong. As they called for me from behind, I did not respond; but my eyes lit up with a wide grin when they came into view.
Can you hear me, can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running, can you hear me calling you?– Mike and the Mechanics “Silent Running”
I had moderate-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss. I had had severe asthma for the first few years of my life that was resistant to treatment. A few times during my frequent hospital stays, my fevers spiked to 106-107˚ F and I was placed on top of bags of ice to save my life. It was thought that the recurrent fevers had damaged my hearing, and my parents were encouraged to fit me with hearing aids to amplify what I could hear.
Me mind on fire
Me soul on fire, feeling hot, hot, hot – Buster Poindexter “Hot, Hot, Hot”
If I could describe the early years of my home in one word, it would be music. There was nary a weekend when the record player wasn’t spinning the likes of Black Sabbath, Foreigner, Jethro Tull, The Cars, Jimi Hendrix, and hundreds of other bands. Then in 1981, something happened that transformed my life completely – MTV. With my new hearing aids, I soaked in the wondrous sounds from the stereo system, and the music from MTV ‘music videos’. At such a young age, the videos rarely ever made sense and my partial hearing loss meant I never understood the lyrics, but that was never an obstacle to my appreciation of music. I heard the wide-ranging melodies of 80s (rock to new wave to pop); this was combined with watching the artistry of the videos painting worlds I had never seen, the expressive emotions on the singers’ faces, and the translation of stories that brought the characters’ lives into pure sound. It did not matter if I could not understand the words, the music spoke to me more than words ever could.
I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation – Toto “Africa”
My memories of those times are not as sharp now (almost four decades ago). I still have the feeling of wonderment of all the videos that I voraciously devoured – Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”, Elton John’s “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues”, Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer”, The Police “Wrapped Around Your Finger”, and others. I am very aware of the intoxicating bias of nostalgia, but it truly felt like a blissful, creative time. I loved watching the videos at a loud volume and bopping along to songs, such as Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”. Looking back, my mother must have been exasperated at some of the songs I became obsessed with, particularly those in which I was able to make out a few lyrics. I distinctly remember singing the chorus “multiple” times from that one-hit wonder song by Madness:
Our house, in the middle of our street
Our house, in the middle of our street
Our house, in the middle of our street
Our house, in the middle of our…- Madness “Our House”
My love of 80s music paralleled my love of 80s movies and TV. I loved several science-themed movies that had the 80s-style poetic license in full effect, such as “Weird Science”, “My Science Project”, and “The Last Starfighter”, among others. My first exposure to the idea of college was the movie “Real Genius”, which showed extremely bright young people working on laser technology — which blew my still-developing mind. It would be many years before I could go to college, but I was already looking forward to skating on ice-covered dorm hallways, learning science, and building exciting inventions.
Gimme a new sensation
In a place that has no name
Something tells me I'll never be the same…- The Comsat Angels “I’m Falling”
As an adolescent, I experienced the usual share of high and low points, along with the difficulties of being a hard-of-hearing/deaf person in hearing schools. Nevertheless, I excelled in academics and began a love affair with genetics during Advanced Placement Biology in high school. All it took was my teacher Mr. Force (that was really his name!) introducing me to the Punnett Square, and I fell head over heels. I knew then that I wanted to major in Biology to become a geneticist. After graduation and a break for a couple of years, I went to graduate school to specialize in developmental genetics and become a professor of biology. The academic career path was the only one I knew at the time to do the science that I loved so dearly.
One night after working out, everything sounded off-pitch with my hearing aids on. I thought there was something wrong with them and I planned to have them checked out. Later, I woke up in the middle of the night with a splitting headache and thunderous ringing and feedback in my ears. I barely slept that night.
And I can't get it out of my head
No, I can't get it out of my head
Now my old world is gone for dead
'Cause I can't get it out of my head…- Electric Light Orchestra “I Can’t Get It Out Of My Head”
My way of understanding was shattered. Everything came to an absolute standstill. I lost count of the number of medical appointments that followed, and time slowed to a crawl. My mom accompanied me to one of my appointments and the doctor said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with your son”. My mom, always optimistic and full of life, became instantly deflated. I will forever remember the singular sensation in that moment of hearing the doctor’s uncertainty. It is like goose bumps, only it felt like a slow but steady wash of fluid electrocuting me. I remember the feeling of crackling, like lightning striking a strong tree and destroying it into a million shards of glowing embers. I was faced with the prospect that this was serious and potentially irreversible. Then came a creeping fear that music may forever be out of my reach from that point on. One of the most joyous parts of my life was gone. In its place, was a constant onslaught of throbbing, droning tinnitus, screeching, and roaring to an audience of one inside my head. With no relief in sight, I was no longer compatible with my body, and I was abandoned.
So it’s all come back round to breaking apart again
Breaking apart like I’m made up of glass again
Making it up behind my back again
Holding my breath for the fear of sleep again
Holding it up behind my head again
Cut in deep to the heart of the bone again
Round and round and round
And it’s coming apart again
Over and over and over- The Cure “Disintegration”
When all this happened, I was well into the fourth year of grad school. Prior to this sudden hearing loss and tinnitus, I had developed significant anxiety over my dissertation research. Grad school is often extremely stressful, and I had multiple experiments in progress at any one time. After that fateful night, I tried to go straight back to doing research and notified my mentor and lab mates that my hearing was messed up. I tried to keep up with my experiments, desperate for distraction from the severe tinnitus I was experiencing, but I started falling behind. The weekly meetings with my mentor and my camaraderie with my lab mates were strained, through no fault of their own. How do we support someone going through such a catastrophic event? How can we find new ways to communicate when the old method no longer works? Is it the right thing to do to let them be, or should we give help that is unsolicited? These are hard questions when someone is going through any significant loss and there are no right answers.
I attended lab meetings and tried my best to follow with the speech reading skills I had always used in conjunction with my hearing. At best, it was passable; at worst, I missed everything completely. I still had teaching assistantship work to carry out and carried around a dry-erase board and marker for communication. This system was fine for asking a question but was woefully inadequate for conversation. It was very isolating, and I did not know how much longer I could go on like this. I did not know sign language and even if I did, there was no one else to sign with. If I did manage to complete grad school and receive a PhD, it would take me longer than 5 years, further endangering my chances at success in academia. After working so hard and sacrificing so much to prove to the world and myself that I could make it as a hard-of-hearing person, everything seemed insurmountable.
In a little while
I'll be gone
The moment's already passed
Yeah, it's gone
And I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here
-Radiohead "How to Disappear Completely"
I still cannot adequately describe my headspace during these events. Words failed me then, as they do now. In the movie Sound of Metal, Ruben experienced his loss by the simple fading of the crowd and the encroaching of the low, throbbing drone. My experience was more complicated than that. It would be a long time before I came across a song that stitched my disparate and fragmented memories with threads of undulating low end, trebly screeches, pulsing frequencies, and distant, indecipherable voices from the point of no return. This is not a song as most people understand them to be. This piece has traces of accidental musical notes underneath a burgeoning discord. The lyrics are crushed beyond recognition. Thanks to the kindness of Andrew Grant/The Vomit Arsonist, I have created a video of his song “no one can help you”, with the lyrics in the description (link to “No one can help you” video). Whether you wish to experience this or not, you have the choice that I never had.
Dr. Stephen Klusza is a developmental geneticist who received both his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Biological Sciences at Florida State University and performed research in fruit fly epigenetics as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an Assistant Professor of Biology at Clayton State University in Morrow, GA, Dr. Klusza is interested in creating accessible and equitable low/no-cost educational resources and research opportunities to increase accessibility in education for all students. He also serves as the current Chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for the Genomics Education Partnership and advocates for disability representation in STEM and academia. @codebiologist
This is a repost from Dr. Henry Adler’s blog, The Eagle Ear, where he chronicles his career and deafness. ‘Cochlear implants are not my thing… yet‘ was originally posted at The Eagle Ear on November 29, 2020.
I was a graduate student at Dr. James Saunders’ laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At that time, the laboratory focused on both the structural and functional aspects of hearing loss and recovery in chickens. The laboratory had other research interests such as the structural aspects of middle ear bone development in small mammals, but that’s beside the point.
I was the first deaf graduate student at UPenn’s own Biomedical Graduate Group – I entered there with an undeclared major in the fall of 1989. My initial plan was to major in pathology but I eventually got my doctorate in Neuroscience. That’s been already explained in an earlier blog (Why I chose Neuroscience over Marine Biology – August 17, 2020).
It was an unusual time for me and anyone involved in inner ear research for different reasons.
As for me, I was probably one of very few scientists with a congenital hearing loss, perhaps the first deaf scientist who attended any meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO). Yes, there had been a few others with hearing loss who had attended such a meeting, but none of them was born with a hearing loss or had hearing loss at an early age.
As for other ARO members, well, many, if not all, of them had originally focused on helping ameliorate the effects of hearing loss on everyday life. Such focus had involved learning how to treat or even cure hearing loss. When they either met or heard about me, they’d say, “Whoa!” They must’ve been struck by the possibility that maybe a deaf individual might want not only to learn about the functional and structural aspects of hearing loss in all animals including human beings but also to consider treatment for his own hearing loss so that he could fit better into the Hearing Research community.
Well, as I described in an early blog (‘You have a bad attitude’ – August 17, 2022), the answer is no.
For several years when I was at Jim’s laboratory, I had worked with him, fellow graduate students, medical students doing rotations, residents in otolaryngology and other visiting scientists. Some, if not all, had tried to pressure me into having a cochlear implant, either seriously or in a fun way. I always brushed them off.
Nearing the end of my graduate studies, I was working on my Ph.D. dissertation. Naturally, I was under immense pressure to finish it off before my dissertation defense, but I also was able to relax a bit when I could take a few moments to do so. One of them took place at the laboratory when I believe we all had a lunch break, maybe for a pizza or dessert break. Jim and all his graduate students were chatting back and forth, and of course I couldn’t grasp all of what they were talking about. Somehow, Jim commented something about cochlear implants, and I finally blew up on him. Jim realized how serious I was about not having a cochlear implant, even though the point he was making was not about my decision not to have a cochlear implant but was made in general. But at that time, I thought he was talking about me. Hence the loss of my temper.
A few weeks later when it was time to orally present and defend my dissertation, my parents and my fiancée Denise came to watch me. I was nervous as hell – I was rather confident with my approach to present my work but had little, if any, preparation to answer audience questions for several reasons.
One reason is I didn’t participate much in group discussions about hearing research in general – participants would talk back and forth, and sign language interpreters would try to capture what they were discussing. Unfortunately they weren’t always successful because they themselves weren’t scientifically proficient. Another reason is that Jim and/or my fellow graduate students either didn’t have time and/or didn’t know how to prepare me for any question-and-answer sessions. Even though one of my fellow graduate students had deaf parents, he himself was a very quiet individual. Most of the time, no sign language interpreters or any other accommodations were available at the laboratory. So, it was OK for me to sit back and let them talk without my having to participate. No wonder that at least one of my fellow graduate students had felt (and even expressed) that I had been a lazy student.
Let’s go back to my lack of cochlear implantation during my graduate studies. When I barely passed my dissertation defense (I thought I didn’t pass it, but I wasn’t the only graduate student who had felt that way), we had a lab party. During the party, Jim had told my parents that I would not be a good candidate for cochlear implantation. He might have based his conclusion on his interactions with me, including my blow-up a few weeks back then.
Several days, months or years later (I don’t remember exactly when), my parents told me about Jim’s mention of my not being a good candidate for cochlear implantation. At first, I said OK. Later on, when my parents read my blog (that is, You have a bad attitude), they reminded me of Jim’s assessment of my candidacy.
Now, only after I had kept (and still keep) hearing from my peers with hearing loss who now wear cochlear implants and are doing well, career-wise, as well as had seen how well my wife Denise is doing with her own cochlear implant, I realize that the lack of candidacy was based on my attitude on cochlear implantation. It’s not because I’m against cochlear implantation, but because comments from people with whom I’m friendly or in a close relationship have stiffened my resistance against having my own cochlear implant. Plus, I just have had too many things on my mind, and I don’t want cochlear implants, followed by therapy, to take time away from things I want or need to do.
Biography of Henry J. Adler: I am a Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Hearing and Deafness at the University at Buffalo. I do research on several fields of Hearing Science — they include (but are not limited to) hearing loss, hyperacusis, and tinnitus, as well as inner ear injury, protection, and repair. I have been involved in Hearing Research since the early 1990s when I was a graduate student at the Biomedical Graduate Group at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn). I have been profoundly deaf since birth and started wearing hearing aids AND speech therapy when I was 15 months old. I went to the Lexington School for the Deaf in Jackson Heights, NY and then was mainstreamed into the NYC Public School System, which culminated with my entrance into Bronx High School of Science. Afterwards, I matriculated at Harvard University, majoring in biology, and worked as a research technician at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary for two years before entering UPenn. Within a year after my college graduation, I began to interact with Deaf people and eventually became adept in American Sign Language. So, I’m not limiting myself to just spoken and sign languages but I aim to maximize my efforts to obtain as much information as I can at both personal and professional levels. You can learn about my perspectives on the effects of hearing loss on both personal and professional lives of mine via the-eagle-ear.com.
I was born in Flanders, Belgium to hearing (non-signing) parents. I am the oldest of four. I grew up hard-of-hearing and became deaf in my teenage years. I went to a regular school where I used hearing aids and FM and relied on lipreading. I was raised and educated in Dutch, and learned to sign (Vlaamse Gebarentaal – Flemish Sign Language – VGT) when I was 16, through socializing in the Flemish deaf community. At home with my partner and two children I use VGT. In my personal and professional life, on any given day I use a mixture of languages: Nederlandse Gebarentaal (NGT) (Sign Language of the Netherlands), British Sign Language, International Sign, VGT, Dutch, and English. As a Belgian I can make do in French, and I can understand ASL (or some academic ASL at least).
How did you get to where you are?
After I obtained my first MA degree in Belgium (Disability Studies), I felt that something was missing. I applied (and got funding, quite importantly) to study for an MSc in Deaf Studies at the Centre for Deaf Studies (CDS) at the University of Bristol in 2005. It was one of the best decisions of my life. It felt like coming home, not only in terms of content of the study but also because there were other deaf students, the classes were mainly taught in British Sign Language, some of the professors and lecturers were deaf themselves, and the social life was also in sign. It was in Bristol that I realized I wanted to do more research in Deaf Studies. Bristol also gave me a brilliant network of friends and colleagues.
After I got my degree, I actually got the opportunity to do a PhD at the University of Bristol, but decided to defer the funding for one year because I felt I had done enough studying by then (6 years), and wanted something different that was more practice-oriented. The Flemish deaf association offered me a job in their advocacy team and I decided to take the offer. This was also one of the decisions that have deeply influenced my life and who I am as a researcher and a person. Eventually, one year became five years. Five years of advocacy work (linked to deaf education, access, sign language interpreting services, tv broadcasting, etc.), community work (organizing events, workshops, courses), learning to engage with a great number of different people from all walks of life. It was a great experience.
After five years, I felt it was time to get back to research again, but obviously by that time my funding in Bristol was no longer available. I started to look for PhD funding and in the end got a PhD position at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. My PhD was about the legal recognition of sign languages — more specifically in Finland and Scotland, where I followed the process from initial campaign to final adopted law. After my PhD I started a post-doc position at the University of Namur in Belgium funded by the Marie Curie Actions, for which I did a study on sign language vitality in Flanders. When that funding ran out, I applied for a few academic jobs and got a position at the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht (HU) in the Netherlands, which is currently my institution. HU is the only university in the Netherlands that trains sign language interpreters (at BA-level) and they also offer a Master in Deaf Studies. I teach both BA and MA students, and am also a senior researcher at the research group ‘Participation through Communication’, where I am responsible for carrying out Deaf Studies and sign language research.
What is the biggest professional challenge you face (as educator or researcher)? How do you mitigate this challenge?
Working with sign language interpreters is definitely one of the biggest challenges, so much so that I decided to make it a professional and research interest of mine 🙂
Being an academic who is deaf (and a woman) is another challenge: when you have critical opinions and are used to voicing these, you are quickly seen as ‘angry’, ‘emotional’, or ‘irritated’.
Not linked to being a deaf academic, but as a researcher in general:
At this stage in my career, I find a real challenge is having to adapt research agendas based on your institution/employer/funding, which means I feel I can never really finish projects. People are asking me for publications, presentations, etc., based on my PhD or postdoc research (I haven’t even yet analysed all the data I collected during my postdoc!). I am now based at an applied university, which means I need to do practice-based research. This is really interesting and fun to do, but also means it’s not always so easy to connect this with the other stuff I was working on before.
Linked to the previous point: academia can be overwhelming. The work is never finished, there is always that one paper to finish, that one grant to follow up on, that one article that is still on your to-read list. There is competition, you need to publish, teach, and do admin. As deaf academics, we do all the extra emotional labor too, that is often invisible: working with sign language interpreters (it’s not just working with them!; it’s looking for the right ones, preparing them, debriefing them, etc.), educating colleagues about accessibility issues, coping with hearing fragility. Me and many of my deaf colleagues also do a lot of volunteer work to support other deaf academics and Deaf Studies & sign language researchers (for example our work for Acadeafic and Dr Deaf, …). I had a burn-out last year and I don’t want to go through that again. So I firmly set boundaries, I let people know those boundaries, I don’t feel guilty for not working overtime, I unplug now and then.
What is an example of accommodation that you either use or would like to use in your current job?
Sign language interpreters are necessary to do my job, but since I’ve only been at my institution in the Netherlands for just over a year and have to work in NGT increasingly in professional/academic contexts, I’m still finding out which NGT interpreters ‘match’ with me for which professional contexts. I’d like to work with a few designated ones but am currently in the ‘trial and error’ phase still, which is frustrating often.
I’d like to use caption services more. As deaf academics (in Europe) sign language interpreters are often the accommodation we request or are given, but watching an academic presentation in English with for example a BSL interpreter (even a very good one), is still a challenge. People tend to think that with interpreters we have ‘access’ and that’s all there is to it. But that’s actually not true. Interpreters are an accommodation we have to work with to make it work, so to say. The source is in one language, while the output is in another. You don’t have to be a language researcher to know how much can get lost in translation. When we see interpreters’ signed utterances we need to do the mental work of understanding the meaning and how it relates to the source language and the concepts the speaker is using for example. Sometimes it is just easier, and requires much less mental load, to follow the presentation in the same language and modality. And for Q&A and networking, use interpreters.
I started Acadeafic with friends/colleagues Annelies Kusters, Joseph Murray and Erin Moriarty (also deaf academics) in May 2019. Acadeafic is a deaf-curated, multi-author platform that allows Deaf Studies and sign language researchers to share their work in a bite-sized format. There is an amazing output of research on Deaf Studies and sign languages, but as a research community we want to do more to share our work with audiences within and beyond academia, on an open-access basis, and in formats that are easier do digest than full-length academic prose. All our posts are bilingual, with a vlog in any sign language the author prefers and a blog in English. Most of our posts are based on recently published articles or chapters. We also host series of posts based on special issues or edited volumes. We are keen to support junior researchers in promoting their work. We also offer a space for editorials or opinion pieces related to (doing) Deaf Studies and sign language research, for example working with sign language interpreters, navigating academia as a deaf scholar, research methodology and ethics, and access to academic discourse. All our submissions go through peer review conducted by Acadeafic and/or external reviewers, also all deaf. So if you are a Deaf Studies and/or sign language researcher and want to promote your work, get in touch!
What advice would you give your former self?
You’re not here to please everyone.
Any funny stories you want to share?
A few years ago I was at an academic conference dinner. We were at a mixed deaf/hearing table, and there was one sign language interpreter with us. I was talking with one hearing academic and when we had a brief pause, the interpreter left a bit to take a break. I left my phone in my room and I didn’t have anything else to write with to continue the conversation with him, so I gestured ‘phone’ to him in the hopes that he would take out his phone and type. Instead he took out a bit of paper and handed me his phone number. I was like ‘oh’ and he quickly realized that this wasn’t what I was asking him. It was embarrassing, but funny, and the ice was broken for the rest of the evening.
I look forward to and dread research conferences simultaneously.
I look forward to seeing my friends and colleagues, learning about new research, and exercising my neurons as I ponder different research topics and directions. I eagerly anticipate exploring the different cities and countries where the conferences are held. I long for those few days where I control my own schedule.
At the same time, I dread discovering that the provided access services are inadequate to catch the various research presentations and posters—the interpreting and/or captioning quality ranges from poor to excellent, so the significance of getting the gist of what is new research is >0.05 (I know I shouldn’t be using 0.05 as a baseline, my dear statistician friends). I also worry whether the quality of my research work is reflected accurately by the interpreters for my presentations.
But what I dread the most is being viewed as the deafperson, not as a scientist. At the first few conferences I attended, people would come up to me and ask questions such as, “How do you come up with signs for phytoplankton or photorespiration?” Often, they would try to strike up a conversation with the interpreter right in front of me and commiserate about how hard it must be to keep up with the scientific jargon, especially with people speaking at warp speeds. These conversations were always awkward since the interpreters know they cannot have personal conversations while they are interpreting. They would look to me for guidance on how to handle the situations, since they knew the protocol, even if my colleagues did not.
I’ve mastered responding with a strained smile on my face, “Yes, it isn’t easy. By the way, what is yourresearch on? And do you have a poster or talk here?” Most people get the hint and are more than happy to talk about their own research. After twenty years in the field, these encounters become less frequent, but they still occur.
Those encounters have become rarer over time because I have become more assertive about going up to other researchers to ask them about their work; but that assertiveness and confidence has come in part because of my growing scientific reputation in the field of estuarine science and oceanography. Now, I suspect that if I stand around and wait for people to come talk to me, they either won’t come due to fear, or they will come with the dreadedquestions. I truly appreciate my colleagues who come to me to discuss science.
At academic conferences, I am a scientist first, and deaf person second.
Dr. Solomon has been a faculty member at Gallaudet since 2000. She also is an adjunct at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, and serves on masters and doctoral committees for research on increasing participation of deaf and hard of hearing people in STEM and estuarine science especially in the areas of nutrient and microbial dynamics.
The Mind Hears 