"People with disabilities face many barriers to being included in and benefiting from STEM. But the two biggest barriers are ableism and a lack of accessibility. As a person with a disability myself, I can attest those are profound and pervasive threats to STEM equity. … Structural ableism is baked into our policies, our procedures, our programs, and much of STEM really is still undergirded by ableist ideas.”

—Johns Hopkins’ Bonnie Swenor, associate professor at the school of medicine and founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center, speaking at the White House Summit on STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Medicine) Equity and Excellence in December. At the summit, Johns Hopkins’ recently released diversity action plan, its Vivien Thomas Scholars Initiative, and Swenor herself received recognition as part of the White House’s new effort to overcome historical inequities in the nation’s science, technology, engineering, math and medicine enterprise. 

Read more about Swenor: Bit.ly/SwenorArticle.