Association representing interpreters in Canada says the profession is facing an overall shortage. Campbell says the nature of ASL allows her to visually express information, like the way water flows, where rivers and wetlands connect and the position of the sun, while she's in the field. "The three-dimensional nature of ASL is such a benefit because, really, all STEM topics and disciplines are three dimensional," she said. View full article video transcript: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/thursday-april-4-2024-full-transcript-1.7162278

Megan Majocha is gearing up to complete her PhD. But developing a sign-language lexicon to help her succeed took an immense toll during her scientific research.

With nearly 300 registered attendees — both in person and online — it was one of the largest gatherings ever of signing professionals in the science, mathematics, and technology fields from around the world. The culmination of a year-long effort, funded by the National Science Foundation, the summit sought to explore how scientific concepts are communicated in different sign languages and how that impacts education and career outcomes for deaf people.

A fruitful partnership between Rochester Institute of Technology’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf and University of Rochester has earned a funding boost to help meet the long-term goals of the Bridges to the Doctorate for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students program. A grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences will help increase the number of deaf and hard-of-hearing students entering Ph.D. programs in biomedical science fields and the number of deaf and hard-of-hearing students who successfully earn Ph.D.’s in biomedical sciences. This is the 10th year of the program.

University of Utah Health and Litchman partnered with the advocacy group Deaf Diabetes Can Together to create the hospital’s Deaf Community Advisory Board. The board, made up of Rafeek and other deaf patients, advised the hospital on how it could improve care for its patients with diabetes, a condition deaf people are twice as likely to have. Litchman plans to expand this model for other marginalized groups, including rural and Pacific Islander patients.

A team at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History is working with education and disability advocates to create science-education resources for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Funded through a $22,800 grant from the CU Boulder Office for Outreach and Engagement, university staff are collaborating with educators and experts to develop free archeology, paleontology and biology lessons in American Sign Language, Spanish and English available to the public online.

Deaf scientists who use American Sign Language (ASL) need to be able to communicate specialized concepts with ease. Because deaf individuals — here we use ‘deaf’ broadly to refer to the full kaleidoscope of deaf experiences — have historically been under-represented in science, the linguistic capabilities of ASL have yet to be fully explored for scientific discourse. As a consequence, deaf scientists may not have the necessary tools to effectively articulate their work. Nowadays, with improved educational opportunities and communication access, there are more deaf ASL users who are experts in scientific fields.

Welcome to STEM Stories with Deaf and Hard of Hearing Professionals. Hands & Voices, in partnership with a sponsorship from the NTID Regional STEM Center at RIT/NTID, created this interview series with Karen Putz sharing stories of Deaf/Hard of Hearing adults working in the STEM field. Each one of the videos below is a free-flowing conversation with a variety of questions about career, home, and fun!

Amie Fornah Sankoh, who grew up in Sierra Leone during the civil war and lost her hearing around three years old, is the first deaf, Black woman to receive a doctorate in any scientific, technical, engineering and maths discipline in the US, and possibly the world. She will graduate with a PhD from the University of Tennessee (UT) Knoxville’s Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology on 20 May.

Congratulations to Dr. Audrey Cameron for her recommendation to His Majesty The King for the honour of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Birthday 2023 Honours List! Dr. Cameron (Chancellor’s Fellow and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry) studied her PGCE at Moray House and is now a lecturer on the PGDE Secondary programme (Chemistry and General Science), and the MSc Inclusive Education (Deaf Studies). Her OBE is being awarded to recognise her: (1) position as Chair of the University’s British Sign Language (BSL) Plan Implementation Group; (2) services to Chemical Sciences; (3) services to Inclusion in Science Communication.

For decades, deaf and hard-of-hearing students attending RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf have been earning associate, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees. This year, the first three NTID-supported students are on track to earn their doctoral degrees from RIT.

Ask Amelia Dall what advice she’d give to younger people, and she boils it all down to one word. “Perseverance is key,” she says. “I repeat this in every interview, in every conversation I have with someone when discussing my career and advice for the future generations: Keep the word ‘perseverance’ in your head, always.” She ought to know. The 31-year-old is an archaeologist for the Bureau of Land Management — not an easy job to attain, since most positions in archaeology are temporary or contracted. And she happens to be deaf.