Disability and Progress-October 30, 2025-Academy of Blind Scientists

[00:00:01] Speaker A: KPI.org. [00:00:32] Speaker B: It. Greetings. [00:01:02] Speaker A: You're tuned to KFEI 90.3 FM, Minneapolis and kfei.org you're listening to Disability and Progress, where we bring you insights into ideas about and discussions on disability topics. I'm Sam Jasmin. Charlene is here with me. She is my PR research person. Today we're speaking about Academy of Blind scientists. We have Dr. Mona Minkara with us. Dr. Minkara is the director of the Academy of Blind Scientists and assistant professor of bioengineering at Northeastern University. We also have. Sorry, Dr. Mona Munkara. We have Dr. Michele. I hope I said that right. Deputy director of Academy of Blind Scientists, and he is a researcher in combination optimization at the University of Sanyo, Italy. Then we have Dr. Hobby Wedler. Dr. Wedler is government officer of Academy of Blind Scientists and the chemist, sensory storyteller and entrepreneur and investor. Hello, everybody. [00:02:30] Speaker B: Hello. [00:02:31] Speaker C: How are you? [00:02:33] Speaker A: Okay. Thank you for making this trek to your computer to Zoom. I'd like to start by having you guys each give me a little more history about you and how you came to Academy of Blind Scientist. [00:02:52] Speaker D: Hobie, would you like to start? [00:02:53] Speaker C: Actually, absolutely. I'll jump in. Hey, I'm Dr. Hobie and really excited to be with you all. This is a great opportunity. Sam, thank you so much for inviting us on the show. I earned my PhD in organic chemistry in 2016. Been totally blind since birth, and I've gotten to know Mona in the, in the blindness world and the science world. She and I are such close friends. We've been working on any. Any projects we can together for the past over 10 years. Really sort of started collaborating at a conference that we both attended in Mexico. And I'm just honored that I was invited into the Academy Applied Scientists, which is sort of her brainchild, and really excited to do that now. I. I'm a sensory storyteller and explorer. I have an Instagram channel that said some a lot of recent success and now putting together a YouTube show all about travel, history and culture around the world with food and drink at the forefront. So I'm a sensory educator, food and beverage educator, and yeah, blind scientist. [00:04:10] Speaker D: Michele, do you want to go next? [00:04:12] Speaker B: Sure. I'm Dr. Michele Mele. I was born with a macular degeneration in Salerno in the south of Italy. I earned my PhD in Mathematics and IT at the University of Naples. Federico Secondo. And now I work at the Department of Engineering at the University of San still in south of Italy in Campania region. I work on different fields. My research Spans, combinatorial optimization, history of science and mathematics education with a special focus on everything related to equity, accessibility and inclusion. I'm also the director and coordinator of Project Accessibility to Art, the only scientific project in Italy that aims to recreate tactile reproductions of bi dimensional artworks such as paintings and frescoes. [00:05:13] Speaker D: You should share about your knighthood as well. [00:05:16] Speaker B: Always see general for my activities, research activities and educational activities, I've been knighted. I received a knighthood by Italian president Sergio Matarell in March 2024. It's one of the highest civil honors in my native country. [00:05:36] Speaker C: Cool. [00:05:36] Speaker D: That is cool. Yeah. [00:05:37] Speaker A: Great. Yeah, that is cool. [00:05:39] Speaker D: And then how did you. How did you find. Talk about how you connect to the Academy of Blind Scientists. [00:05:47] Speaker B: I was invited by Dr. Amingara, who's a dear friend of mine. And it was. I took the opportunity of being part of this project is a big honor as well as a big challenge. There are so many things we would love to change and I would love to change given my a personal experience and more. So I'm really honored to be here to talk to you and I'm honored to be the deputy director of this initiative. [00:06:19] Speaker D: My name is Mona Mingara. I'm a professor of bioengineering at Northeastern University and I have been blind. They think it's congenital, but I was diagnosed when I was 7 years old with macular degeneration, colonial dystrophy. I lost most of my eyesight within like a couple of years. I currently have some light perception. But for me, my story goes like this. I feel like I've always wanted to find a community and be part of a community of blind scientists. And throughout, throughout my professional, like life, I've met people like Hobie and Michele and lots of other people who are blind scientists that I didn't know about when I was younger and wanted to, you know, bring us all together so we can form this Academy of Blind Scientists. And it's been a privilege to work alongside them and just launch just last week on October 16th. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Wow. So talk to me about what, who is the. I mean obviously you. You guys are Academy of Blind Scientists. But what's your mission? [00:07:29] Speaker D: So our mission is to create a community of blind scientists, a community of blind scientists, an organization that's for blind scientists by blind scientists, that we come together, that we become the place to go to if you want to learn about how to become a blind scientist, how to teach a blind kid who wants to do science, that we become, you know, the leading expert in community, you know, an organization to Connect across the globe. If you want to add more, Hobie and Michele, jump in. [00:08:04] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, I'd just say that our goal is to, to make the community of blind scientists thrive and to provide a space that is exciting and public and well known, which is really a platform for blind scientists to do their, their best work and to come together and talk about what it's like to be a blind scientist and share stories and share advice and all these things. [00:08:37] Speaker B: It's also worth pointing out that we also would love to make this community grow. And it means that we really want to explain people, to show people completely that despite, and even, I would say even because of our condition, we became scientists. And that this is also applicable to other kids, other young blind people who want to do science, who want correct and coherent STEM education, maybe want to have a career in science. [00:09:12] Speaker D: Yes. And to show society that we are contributing scientists and science needs us. [00:09:21] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:09:22] Speaker A: I want to touch on something I saw in your blurb. It says where blind scientists are not exceptions, but leaders across every field in science. Do you feel like you're exceptions? [00:09:38] Speaker D: No, no, the Society sees us as exceptions. [00:09:45] Speaker C: We're not exceptions in our own minds and with each other. And, and what's great about this group is we're, we're a group of professional colleagues. And Sam, what I think is really interesting is, you know, you've got plenty of groups of, of sighted scientists that come together and have meetings. Groups like the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, you know, all sorts of. Those are two of very specific branches and, and professional organizations. There's no professional organization currently that supports and honors blind scientists. So there are a whole lot of us. If you look at society as a whole, it's less than 1% blind or low vision folks. And those of us who go into science is even smaller. And we're basically here as a profession, I think, as a professional organization of leaders of science who just so happen to be blind. [00:10:45] Speaker A: What does it mean to you to mentor students? [00:10:51] Speaker B: Well, I might say I am son and nephew of teachers, but I would say of teachers who like, took very seriously their job of mentors, I would say. So it's maybe something that runs in my blood. Well, I, I just feel it's what we need to do, but it's not because we are blind scientists only. Many of the problems we see in the world today come from the fact that people are not up for mentoring people who might need help. So even given our particular situation, our particular condition, I truly think that mentoring and supporting especially students and teachers and students families is not only our mission but something part of our mission, I would say. But it's something truly human and important to our society. [00:11:53] Speaker D: Yes. And I want to add that like, like to be a mentor is to be somebody who listens to the mentee, listens to the problems they're going through, help provide, you know, possible solutions based on their experience. Just be there as a support. Like to say that it is possible to achieve your goal. [00:12:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I think mentors in my mind are very steadfast and like Mona said, supportive. And my goal in everything I do is to just provide leadership and support for anyone who wants to get involved in science. And I really do feel like being a chemist who happens to be blind, I have a duty and a responsibility of helping other blind scientists not only achieve their goals, but you know, excel in their goals. [00:12:56] Speaker A: Are there any kinds of accessible tools or protocols you have developed? [00:13:05] Speaker B: Well, I can't say I have developed a tool or a method, but I can say I'm actively promoting the Math Speak protocol for schools around the world. The Math Speak protocol is a set of best practice rules to deliver, to read formulas, to present formulas and mathematical expressions orally, verbally, in a non ambiguous way. The problem of ambiguity. Spoken mathematics still pretty much underrated. It's just like if I say three plus four over five, blind person who can't see the formula I'm writing on the blackboard for example, might think is 3 plus 4 all on top on the numerator or just 4 and 3 being outside of the fraction. Just to do a very basic example of how tricky is the problem of ambiguity in the verbalization of maths. Maths Peak Protocol was devised by a great blind mathematician of the past, Professor Abraham Nimuth, and I'm actively pushing to get it known widely. It's pretty much known in some experts, by some experts in the Anglosphere, but it's completely unknown elsewhere. That's why I devised an Italian translation and adaptation and I hope others will follow because the protocol is highly effective. Research shows not only. Research shows that not only 10% of teachers, only 10% of teachers know about the problem of ambiguity in spoken mathematics, but also that the protocol is highly accessible and effective. With just four to six hours of training, a teacher can completely erase and every form of ambiguity ambiguity in his or her verbalization of formulas. [00:15:03] Speaker D: And also as a side note, we did launch the Academy of Blind Scientists on Abraham Nemeth's birthday, which is, which is great, but we do care about like Sam, back to your question. Like, we do care about creating and promoting tools to make sense science accessible. And so actually on a project with Dr. Brian Shaw, Hobie and I have worked on developing Some techniques of 3D printing to make chemistry more accessible. I personally have a whole compiled webpage of blind scientist tools of every tool I've ever used throughout my career. And those are all things that are going to be available that are available actually currently on the Academy of Blind Scientist website, we also have gathered resources from every country in the world of where if you are blind, you can go to our website and click on links that are relevant to your country or nation and see what organizations of the blind are there. [00:16:02] Speaker A: Excellent. So I'm wondering, I feel like people think of science as kind of a visual field and how do you make it non visual? [00:16:19] Speaker C: You know, I think it's a big misconception that science is visual. Apparently vision, eyesight is a sense that we use to take in 85 to 90% of the information from our surroundings. So it inherently is responsible for a lot of what we do and what we take in. But I think all of us would agree that the act of doing science is not visual. It is, it is in your mind. So while we might, our eyesight might be very welcome when looking at reactions that happen in the lab, seeing gases evolve, seeing color changes, that sort of thing. None of us, not you, not me, not any of us on this interview, or anyone in the world for that matter, can see atoms and see what's going on. So chemistry, for instance, is a very cerebral science. And I think Mona would agree with me in terms of chemistry and bioengineering as well. And I think Nikola would agree in terms of mathematics, these are not visual subjects. Sometimes eyesight is helpful to understand them and gather the information because we like to present a lot of scientific information in a visual manner. But the subject matter itself and the ability to think about it and understand it and solve problems critically and think critically is not a sighted task. It is not a visual task. [00:17:42] Speaker D: Yes, I agree with that for sure. And then I think it's. Humans have decided that science is visual because humans rely on eyesight the most. But science is observation and we have five senses to observe through, right? [00:18:01] Speaker B: How it's what happens when we, we talk about the oculocentric vision of culture or science, Science in particular, people tend to think it's visual, but everything is seen by the eyes of the mind. And this is due by, due to the fact that when one says like I'm a mathematician. People immediately think as one writing or engineer. Someone drawing, for example. And that's the stigma that must be erased once and for all. [00:18:32] Speaker A: How many members do you have? An Academy of Blind Scientists. And how can one join? [00:18:39] Speaker D: So I have to count. We have a governance board. Does anybody have the number? Let me count them out. So the three of us plus. [00:18:49] Speaker B: Okay. [00:18:49] Speaker D: Plus four more. So, so that's total. Yeah, Seven of us on the governance board. We also have two Fellows of the Academy. These are individuals that are themselves blind scientists, but are not part of the governance board and they are available for mentorship. One is Dr. Amy Bauer, she is a blind oceanographer. And the other one is Dr. Bonnie Lynn Sweener, she is a data scientist that focuses on health equity. And we, you know, anyone can nominate themselves or a fellow individual who is a blind scientist. So we're always looking in to read nominations on a rolling basis for fellows of the Academy. As for joining, we have a website you can click on subscribe and you'll be able to keep with updates and news that we'll be releasing through the Academy. [00:19:46] Speaker A: Excellent. [00:19:47] Speaker D: So please everybody, come and join the Academy of Blind scientists. It's the academyofblindscientists.org so can you describe. [00:19:59] Speaker A: At least one research breakthrough by a blind scientist and that was enabled by non visual methods? [00:20:13] Speaker C: Sure. [00:20:13] Speaker D: I mean, I could talk about myself and then Hobie and Michele, if you guys want to jump in. So I have told this story before about studying a protein. And because I'm a computational chemist and usually when we model proteins, the first thing a sighted person does is watch a movie of this protein moving. Right. But I can't do that. [00:20:38] Speaker A: Right. [00:20:38] Speaker D: And I cannot ask somebody to describe that. Like, how do you ask? You know, they try to describe and they tell you, oh, it's wiggling and jiggling and you're like, okay, but what parts? And they're like, oh, yeah, it's not clear. Right. They cannot describe the wiggling and jiggling of the atoms and the protein. And so what I did is mathematically model that movement. Right. Like, I specifically looked at taking one portion and transposing because it was a protein that had 12 identical parts. I'm not going to go into the detail, but because of the graphing of the movement that I created and was able to then interact with that plot more accessibly, I was able to find patterns that my sighted peers missed. You can read my work. It's in, it's published in biochemistry. But that's one Example, and there's so many more examples. But if anybody else wants to jump. [00:21:28] Speaker B: In, I can, I can describe what happens to me often. I work in the group of Combinatorial Optimization Research Group at the University of Sanyo. And we were working. We were kind of commissioned by the Norwegian government to produce a model and an algorithm to schedule external candidate exams for the whole of Norway. It means deciding when each student have to take each exams and of course, moving people, censors professors, technical personnel around a country that spans like 12 parallels from north to south. And so we came up with a model. But the thing that might surprise people is that when we started the model, the head of the group, Professor Pascola Vela, told me, well, if there's one person who could see this model, it's you. So we need you with your abstraction power due to your condition. He's a lot of trust in my abilities. We have to design some valid inequalities. This means that when you create a model, it comes up like a big box, like a big polyhedron. And if you add equalities, you cut off the parts of the box of the polyhedron that are not important to you, where you cannot find what you're looking for. So a good schedule. And what happened is that I came up with this idea of creating this particular couple of family, families of inequalities that proven. Have proven very effective. And now for five. Yes, it's five sessions, two years and a half. The Norwegian government has been using our model and our algorithm to schedule not only the external candidates exams, but the whole students, because the model allows for flexibility. So literally our algorithms decides in a pretty much optimal way, the movement of about 45,000 people twice a year. And it happened because someone had faith in my abilities to see things that were not visual. [00:24:01] Speaker C: That's amazing. Yeah. Just quickly here, I. You know, I feel like there's. There's so much that happens when we can't see what we're doing because we think about things differently and we're able to solve problems differently. Good example of my work is a collaboration between a group out of Davis, where I went to school in the University of Madison, of Wisconsin, Madison. And we were solving this very complex chemical problem. No idea why the mechanism that we were studying happened the way it did. And we were looking at a bromine molecule, bromine atom that was bonded to a carbon. We were trying to see where it went. And I said, well, look, we've tried everything else. Let's just let the bromine molecule or bromine atom roam freely in the molecule and see where it goes. Kind of like when I leave a unfamiliar airport and need to figure out where I'm going. And yeah, that technique proved to be super successful. We watched the bromine move around and figured out exactly where it went and that dictated the whole rest of the mechanism. So it's just ways of. I don't think we're different than other people at solving problems. I just think that we think about things differently enough that our solutions end up hopefully as often as possible being quite innovative. [00:25:26] Speaker D: I would argue that it's necessary. Like we, like if you just heard like three examples of how being a blind scientist actually progressed the field. And I think this is crucial. I think society is still, unfortunately the majority of society is still at the point in which, oh, you know, like you're blind, you shouldn't be a scientist. Oh, you want to, you know, we'll help you for you. No, no, no. This is good for all of us. [00:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:25:59] Speaker B: And it's very important to point out, as Hobby said, we are not an exception. And they also told me like, you're blind, how can you understand math? Famous last words. So the point is that even in history we had a lot of blind and partially sighted scientists, mathematicians and chemists and engineers. Many of them lived even before braille was invented and almost all of them lived before computers were invented and screen readers were for the first time projected. So let me also tell that there's a little page on our website that collects snapshots of the lives and figures and contributions. Yeah. Of blind and partially sighted scientists in history from the first ever known. That was born like three centuries and almost three centuries and a half ago. So I think it's important to understand that even in history we have not been that exception, that kind of an exception. There, there have been blind scientists for three centuries and more. So time to defeat a stigma. [00:27:14] Speaker D: Yes, yes. And shed light. Like really not even shed light. Shed attention. Let me say that shed attention to, to, to the rich history of being blind scientists, to the blind scientists that are today. And I mean, are there challenges? 100%. But the challenges are because of how society has constructed. [00:27:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:27:36] Speaker D: Science. Like we have, you know, there was a, what was it? In the early 1900s it became that science can only be done through observing through your eyes. And that's, that's just wrong. There's other ways and modes of silly observation. [00:27:49] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And, and the other thing that I would add is that we, we want to not only spread awareness but Be a group that advocates for anyone who thinks they want to study science, who might be blind, come talk to us. Because we're the group that's going to say, when everyone else is saying, oh, that's not practical for you, we're going to be the ones cheering you on and saying, go for it. [00:28:14] Speaker A: Yes. [00:28:15] Speaker D: And. And helping provide solutions. Because we, we are blind scientists, you know, we're running labs, we are running businesses, and, and we're doing research. [00:28:26] Speaker C: And we've been through the hardship, let me tell you. We've seen it and done it. [00:28:31] Speaker B: We know everything by our own experience. We learn practical lessons that we are very glad and willing to pass to others. That's the best way to break barriers in the immediate way. So if you know about blind kids who are interested in science, just don't stop them. If science is their passion or if they just want to understand how they could become blind scientists, just reach out to us. We're here for them. We're here for you. [00:29:02] Speaker D: Yeah. This is our legacy. We hope that by starting the Academy of blind scientists, that there will be way more blind scientists in the future than ever before. So we hope to be there and catalyze that change and be that support and provide solutions from our experiences and progress science at the same time. Because science needs us. [00:29:28] Speaker A: Excellent. Yes, they do. I want to talk about labs, since I think all of you probably have worked in one or have them. I'm wondering what gaps still exist in university labs in regards to safety and instrumentation and data access. Does that lead to blocking? Is that difficult? [00:29:56] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, I think that your question was a very good one. And lab environments are inherently visual based on the way that they're designed. I'll speak for myself and Mona and Mika can speak for themselves. I ended up studying computational chemistry as a graduate student because I didn't want to have the sort of hassle of working in a wet laboratory or an experimental laboratory. Although while I was in graduate school, I did have a student who shared a lab with me who was a synthetic chemist. And we actually went in together and did some very exciting synthesis work on some molecules that I've studied for a long time. So it was absolutely fascinating to get to step into the lab as a graduate student, but also as an undergraduate. Of course, we have to take lab classes and my whole sort of art to that. And I think we all have our own way of doing it, and it's both an art and a science. My art, as I said, was to show, explain to whoever was instructing the lab course that I'm blind. I'm going to be in your course. I have a great lab assistant who I've worked with a lot and talk to a lot. And this person and I are very close and we always make sure we read the lab manual and, and I would make sure that I went through all the safety protocols and the procedural protocols. If I wrote them, I would write them and review them with my assistant. Or if they were in a printed and a lab manual for more lower division undergraduate courses, we would read that lab manual thoroughly. And I wouldn't just say, hey, can you read the lab manual yourself? And then I'll read it myself. And we come together. I would explicitly sit down together with this person, either on a call or in person, preferably in person, and read through the thing together so that we were both on the same page and had the same approach to it, so that we, we both knew what was happening. And then we go into the lab and we knew that we were there together and we were there with 20 odd other people and that safety was the top priority. And instructors, because I had assistance that I trained well, were generally speaking, very much okay with me being in the lab and participating just like anyone else. [00:32:14] Speaker B: As far as MAS is concerned, the gaps are mostly related, almost all related to the fact that we don't have a mature screen reader to read mathematical formulas, even if this might change in the near future thanks to artificial intelligence. But at the moment, for example, everyone has his own solutions. At the moment, I use latex a lot to write in a code that my research group mates can just compile and see as normal formulas. This is the solution we have at the moment. It takes a bit of time to learn it. Okay, yeah, but it's still a solution. What I want to point out is that maybe solutions are not that far away and that you can find solutions. Sometimes it's easier than you might think. And that's why we want to promote, actively promote with our experience, with our technical and scientific support, the creation of better educational methods and assistive technologies. Because we know what are the gaps that we need to fill at the moment. Even if I'm like, maybe I'm too optimistic, but yeah, I think that the problem, for example, the problem of accessibility of mathematical formulas can be solved in the next decades, decade, maybe even less. [00:33:44] Speaker D: Because you're working on it. We are the forefront and find in finding those solutions. That's what the academy holds and that's what's amazing about this group. [00:33:58] Speaker A: I'm Wondering how you feel like you'll measure, what impact your organization will make. [00:34:07] Speaker C: I think we're really new at this and I think we're all sort of figuring that out as we speak. It's a great question, but I don't know how we're going to measure success yet. [00:34:16] Speaker D: I mean, we can. I mean, we're going to start. All of us have already been mentoring individuals. We're already individuals that people come to to ask for advice around being a blind scientist. And now we're collect, coming together and supporting one another in this mission. And I think that one of the biggest measures, I mean, we already have support from multiple organizations, multiple schools for the blind, just multiple organizations around the world. And so I think we'll be kind of tracking who signs up and reaches out to us and, you know, wants to support us. And we'll see the impact that we now provide. It will be amplified because we'll be supporting one another in doing that. [00:35:04] Speaker A: Where does your funding and resources come for your work and are there any constraints on it? [00:35:17] Speaker D: No. I mean, currently we are housed at Northeastern, which is a nonprofit. So if people ever want to support us, we can get grants. But currently we're housed at Northeastern and we have support through Northeastern and we hope to be able to grow. [00:35:32] Speaker A: I'm wondering, because you talk a lot about having a sighted person with you in the lab, which I think for many reasons would be important, let alone knowing what's going on. How do you train sighted collaborators and lab managers to work inclusively without, you know, feeling like they're over correcting or gatekeeping? How do you. How do you train them? [00:36:00] Speaker C: It's a really good question and one that I haven't thought so, so deeply about for a while. So it's a thank you, Sam, for asking that. I would say for me, and I think we all do it a little bit differently. I just show folks what I can do and we start working together as early as possible in our relationship and then we sort of build that relationship. So I wouldn't want to work with a sighted assistant for the first time when I sit down and take an important exam. I'd want to work with that person for at least a couple of weeks before that and learn how we both work together. And it's a give and take, like, right. I'm not, I'm not like telling them exactly what to do to make it work for me. [00:36:43] Speaker B: It's. [00:36:43] Speaker C: And they're not trying to do something, you know, that only works for them. We try to figure out each other's working styles and then we come together on everything and figure out what the best way is to collaborate and work together. Typically, a good assistant is going to be very good at describing imagery and scientific figures that they see. And we're going to come up with a certain nomenclature that we both understand as we, as we go through it. [00:37:13] Speaker D: And on top of that, it's really important that. So if I'm working with a sighted assistant, that's different than working with a sighted collaborator. So a sighted assistant is somebody who's there to help kind of manifest my, what I want to do right there. They have to follow my lead, if that makes any sense. While a collaborator is somebody. We're working together. [00:37:38] Speaker C: Right. [00:37:39] Speaker D: And so it's, there is a distinction there and it's really important to kind of clarify that. I work with both sighted collaborators and like I have, I have a sighted access assistant. And so when I do have that access assistant, they're following my instructions, my lead. They're just there to assist with the visual things. And like Hobie said, it's really important that we, we have a rapport together that, you know, we figured out how to communicate. [00:38:15] Speaker A: What's your policy or wish list? If you could have one change each for the universities or journalism or for journals, if you could have a change there, what would be your wish? [00:38:36] Speaker C: Come up with a standard way of presenting figures in the literature would be mine. So that, you know, if an image appears or a figure appears, it's always going to be presented in the same way. The biggest problem now is it's sort of the Wild west when authors publish papers and journals with how they draw their figures and how they might describe their figures in captions. If there is a universal way to do that, it would help all of us so much. [00:39:07] Speaker B: Yeah. This enters the more general issue of the accessibility of knowledge. Many papers, many journals produce papers that are not very accessible, not only for figures, but even just for the way they format papers generally. And this is another issue that must be addressed, even if I don't think it's a very hard issue to solve both graphically and technically, to make everything work with the most common screen readers. [00:39:46] Speaker A: For early career blind students who are blind, what's the first three step plan to find mentors? Access a lab and publish. [00:40:03] Speaker C: So I would say that we are a great place if parents of a blind child are excited to help their, their child excel. We would be a really good resource to reaching out to us. We can mentor those students in our best way. Possible accessing a lab that's really on the student to figure out the best way to do that, that works well for them, him or her. And we can help with that. We can make introductions. And in order to publish, you have to do research. So finding a professor whose understanding of the disability and understanding of the student's desire to do research is all really important so that the research becomes totally accessible and available. That's my thought. But I'm sure Mikaela and Mona have others. [00:40:52] Speaker D: Mona, I agree with this. [00:40:53] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm wondering what are the most common misconceptions about blindness in STEM hiring or peer review and how do you counter them? [00:41:06] Speaker D: I would say the biggest misconception is that we cannot do it. I've literally been on interviews for a job they flew me out for and was told that you cannot do this job. Right, yeah. I'm a professor now at an R1 institution. I run a lab, I can do this job and I teach. [00:41:26] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:41:29] Speaker A: I want to know, since each of you have had your own kind of trail into becoming a blind scientist, what was the most difficult part for you? [00:41:40] Speaker C: Convincing people that we could do what we could do. So I went to the same institution, the University of California, Davis, for both my undergraduate and graduate careers because I didn't want to have to convince another chemistry department that I should be able to study chemistry at a level equal to my sighted peers. I'd done that as an undergraduate and I said, it's going to be easier if I stay here. It was a great decision, happened to be a great decision, but showing other people what we can do, always having to prove ourselves. [00:42:12] Speaker D: For me, I think I had internalized that perhaps I couldn't do it. So it was like this internal struggle. I personally had internalized ableism and thought that my blindness was something that I needed to overcome, that I personally observed myself almost as being broken, but then realizing later on, actually because of my postdoc advisor, Dr. J. Eliasitman at the University of Minnesota, that no, my blindness is an asset. It allowed me to do my science differently, which will allow me to find solutions that other people's, that other people have missed. And so I think for a long time I felt like I was fighting against my blindness as opposed to working with it and finding those solutions that are because I think differently. [00:43:10] Speaker B: Possibly my hard moment, hardest moment was not at university, Even if my PhD period was not the happiest for the same reasons Hobby pointed out, but was at the last three years of high school in Italy is what we. What you would call College from 15 to 18 years old school. And I was told not only by my maths professor but even by others. You're blind, you can't understand maths as I told you earlier. But I, I didn't internalize this because I always say that it's conte determines disability and not a handful of missing cells. And my family had always explained I grew up with the idea that I should not accept limitations because of other people's limitations. [00:44:02] Speaker A: That is a really good thought, isn't it? I'm wondering with where the commercial or open source technologies now like tactile Audio hapt or AI, what do you think is going to be the most promising right now and why? [00:44:24] Speaker B: I can't say the name but I tried recently a software that can describe mathematical graphs and it works with AI and I think it's really promising. But the impact of AI is probably, will be probably massive in the next three or four years. Let's see where it goes. But I'm, how can I say, Widely optimistic. [00:44:52] Speaker C: Ditto. I agree with Mika, like completely. If there are two ways I think people can think about AI, you can either be excited about the future or scared and not willing to jump on the, jump on the wagon. I think it's a, it's a problem. People who are scared of it and don't want to embrace it are going to miss out. To me, the ability to use AI already to shoot a photo with my phone and have it described to me without any sighted assistance, any sighted intervention has been mind boggling and incredible. And I think AI has the future. [00:45:34] Speaker A: I feel like I knew that one but I wanted to see what you guys would say. So I'm wondering for each of you if you could name one tool or practice that you wish every lab would adopt, what would it be? [00:45:50] Speaker B: I think it's different from maths labs and chemistry labs. So if you're talking about, are we talking about devices or softwares in this case? [00:46:01] Speaker D: Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna answer it actually outside the box a little bit. I think for me the practice of it being normal to have a blind colleague. [00:46:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's it. And, and for me, if I'm gonna layer on top of that, Mona, I would say the ability to embrace everyone's ability to solve problems, whether they, you know, have a disability or they're from a different country than you or whatever. It's the ability to embrace all opinions and allow them all to fit into a solution. [00:46:39] Speaker B: It's the ability of seeing difference as something positive to every work environment, but generally to every environment in work and school and many, many other environments. And yeah, that's the most important and immediate tool to, to accept and that every laboratory should, should have in its arsenal. [00:47:10] Speaker D: Now, my students and in my lab will. It will just be normal for them, like my students in my classes. It's just normal for them to have a blind bioengineering professor. [00:47:21] Speaker A: So, yeah, that's cool. I am. I'm just curious if you feel like AI will make a difference in lab situations and how. [00:47:36] Speaker C: I think AI will necessarily help in the experimental lab setting. I think it helps at describing things to us. But I want to get away from this idea that if you're a blind scientist or a scientist at all, you have to work in sort of the classic lab setting with goggles. That isn't true. It will help you really work in a. In a research setting. Maybe you wear goggles and work with caustic chemicals and whatever. But a lab in my mind is a place where we do research. So when I think about AI helping in a lab, I think about AI describing figures. And what would be great is if I could upload a journal article to AI and then get a fully accessible version of that article. [00:48:28] Speaker A: So in your situation, AI would. Would be a pretty good help? Yeah, yeah. [00:48:36] Speaker D: AI has already helped me in just data mining. [00:48:39] Speaker B: It can be a strong support for, like, everything descriptive. But it's as Hobie said, it's important to understand that a lab can be everywhere. Two or more people discuss their research. You don't necessarily every time, need complex machinery to do math. [00:49:04] Speaker A: I feel like now with upcoming blind scientists, they're going to have a much easier trail than you guys did. Even though, as you point out, there has been visually impaired and blind scientists for decades. Do you feel like they'll have an easier trail? [00:49:26] Speaker D: That's our goal. [00:49:27] Speaker C: That's our goal. And I feel like if I look back at other blind scientists who have lived in history, Mikaela is much more well versed in this than I am. But if I look back at other blind scientists, I, I think we have it easier now because of them. [00:49:44] Speaker B: I think they will have an easier situation than ours, provided we change the culture, we change the narrative, and that's what we want to do. [00:49:55] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:49:57] Speaker D: And, and put ourselves in the public eye. Right. And bring the attention, because, like, the majority of people don't know that there are blind people, blind individuals in history who are scientists and mathematicians, and, you know, that's disappointing. So we want to bring. We want to bring attention to that. We want to normalize the possibility that it could happen, if that's what you want, and also help create the tools to make that happen. [00:50:25] Speaker A: Can you give the website of Blind Scientists, Academy of Blind Scientists. So the URL or the website of Academy of Blind Scientists, what would that be? [00:50:40] Speaker D: Oh, sorry, I couldn't hear you. Academy of blindscientists dot org. [00:50:45] Speaker A: Okay. [00:50:46] Speaker C: Yeah. And reach out to any of us if you have any questions. [00:50:53] Speaker A: And do you guys, like, actually meet X amount of times a year? Do you have. How many times? And. And what do you do during those times? [00:51:03] Speaker D: We have a governance meeting once a month, and we'll also be holding virtual events for people to join. Yeah. So stay tuned for more information. [00:51:14] Speaker C: We're brand new. [00:51:16] Speaker A: All right, well, is there anything more you'd like to leave me with? [00:51:21] Speaker C: We just want to thank you so much, Sam, for getting our story out there in the public airwaves and allowing us the opportunity to share the work that we're doing. Thank you so much. [00:51:31] Speaker D: Yes, thank you. [00:51:32] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:51:34] Speaker A: You're tuned to KFBI, 90.3 FM, Minneapolis, and KFEI.org this is Disability in Progress. We've been speaking with Dr. Mona Menkara and Dr. Michele Mele and Dr. Javi Wedler about the Academy of Blind Scientists. Guys, thanks so much for coming on. [00:51:57] Speaker D: Thank you for having us. [00:51:58] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:51:59] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:51:59] Speaker C: Thank you for having us, Sam. [00:52:01] Speaker A: All right. Scientists rule. All right, thank you very much. Have a great day, you guys.