My Wheelchair As My War Tank: Disabled Scientists/Scientists With Disabilities Fighting Covid-19
Emily Ackerman is a young woman who enjoys painting and spending time with her cat called Poppy.
Fun fact: she also develops models and algorithms to fight respiratory viral infections such as the flu or Covid-19.
Most people do not usually associate engineering with contagious viruses such as the coronavirus. Many of us also imagine engineers as physically strong men who can deal with the rigour of laboratory work. Emily, a wheelchair user who weighs 50 pounds, may not look like part of the Engineer Club at first sight. But, she is a sixth-year PhD student in chemical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh who works alongside healthcare professionals to stop the spread of Covid-19.
Chemical engineering is a branch of engineering that blends science with mathematics and engineering principles. Emily’s work involves creating mathematical models to understand how viruses can infect a large number of cells in the human body, as well as how the body responds to the attack. After understanding the mechanisms of the virus, Emily and her team can find out which existing drugs can be repurposed to combat the spread of the disease, so doctors can immediately treat patients with drugs already produced instead of waiting for new ones. This is especially important in a global epidemic, where the virus can run riot in big cities and time is not a luxury for frontliners.
Disabled engineers also work to solve problems that our frontliners face while keeping us safe. Alison Kahn is an electronics engineer with cerebral palsy at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. She works to research and identify issues that public safety professionals face when they are called to serve in dangerous times such as these. Speaking with firefighters, law enforcement and Emergency Medical Technicians, she works to develop improved IoT (Internet of Things) technology that can allow frontliners to better access data from sensor systems that monitor location, weather and resources. When conducting fieldwork, she realized that there was complicated middleware in the way of data from the sensors being transported to the software system which allows first responders to actually view the information. So, she came up with a solution — simplify the middleware to a “plug and play” application that, just as the name suggests, allows first responders to simply connect the sensors to their computer hardware and access the data. Thus, our heroic frontliners can do their jobs to the best of their ability.
From reading this, you may think that engineers only really solve the problems of “other people'' in their polished laboratories, and their work doesn’t really affect you. That’s not true. Farida Bedwei is a Ghanaian software engineer with cerebral palsy, and she is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of a software company. She develops cloud-based banking systems for the microfinance industry that are easy for anyone, even people who didn’t learn banking in school, to use. Cloud computing is when computing services are provided by a company outside of where they are used. Like real clouds hiding the sun from view, cloud-based systems hide complex infrastructure making the system work, so bankers do not have to know how to use the technology running the system. These banking systems are used by many banking institutions in Ghana and are able to sustain the national economy so that Ghanaians can work, go to school and live the lives they want to live.
These three disabled women prove that disabled engineers can contribute so much to the world. However, there were major obstacles that were in their paths, and there still are for many budding disabled engineers today. Disabled people are less likely to be admitted into engineering schools and face bullying and discrimination. Even after graduating, they usually cannot find welcoming employers who value their strengths. If we encourage more disabled people to become engineers, the world will definitely change for the better.
