Accessible interview practices for disabled scientists and engineers
Samuel M. Greene,
Sandra R. Schachat,
Naomi Arita-Merino,
Xiangkun Elvis Cao,
Harsha Gurnani,
Michael Heyns,
Maria L. Cagigas,
Caitlin L. Maikawa,
Elise J. Needham,
Ethan A. Perets,
Elizabeth Phillips,
Anthony W. Waddle,
Christine E. Wilkinson,
Kevin C. Zhou,
Hannah M. Zlotnick
Affiliations
Samuel M. Greene
Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA; Corresponding author
Sandra R. Schachat
Entomology Section, Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, The University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, Honolulu, Hawai’i 96822, USA
Naomi Arita-Merino
Sustainable Food Processing Laboratory, Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
Xiangkun Elvis Cao
Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Harsha Gurnani
Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Michael Heyns
Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, London, UK
Maria L. Cagigas
Sydney Medical School Nepean, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Caitlin L. Maikawa
Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Elise J. Needham
British Heart Foundation Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK; Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart and Lung Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Ethan A. Perets
Department of Molecular Biology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA
Elizabeth Phillips
Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Anthony W. Waddle
Applied Biosciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
Christine E. Wilkinson
Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA; California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA, USA
Kevin C. Zhou
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
Hannah M. Zlotnick
BioFrontiers Institute, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80303, USA
Increasing representation of people with disabilities in science and engineering will require systemic changes to the culture around support and accommodations. Equitable interview practices can help foster such changes. We, an interdisciplinary group of disabled and nondisabled early-career scientists who care deeply about making science more accessible to all, present a framework of suggestions based on Universal Design principles for improving the accessibility and equitability of interviews for people with disabilities and other underrepresented groups. We discuss potential challenges that may arise when implementing these suggestions and provide questions to guide discussions about addressing them.
