On becoming a physicist: Colin Lualdi shares the challenges and triumphs of a Deaf physics graduate student

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign physics graduate student Colin Lualdi quickly realized he was venturing into uncharted territory when he arrived at Illinois Physics at the start of Fall 2017. Deaf since birth and a native speaker of American Sign Language (ASL), Lualdi was now among a very small group worldwide of Deaf individuals working in physics. The exhilaration of performing cutting-edge research was accompanied by a sobering discovery: the lack of a common language model for effective scientific discourse in ASL was going to be a far greater challenge than he’d anticipated.

Explore

Success!

Thank you for subscribing to our email notification list. Next time we publish a new piece of content you will be updated via your email!

Subscribe to Updates

Subscribe to receive emails when we add new content to the site!

Monthly Newsletter Sign Up