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In my junior year of high school, my class was required to complete a summer internship. When the school posted the internship acceptances, to my shock, I was the only student not on the list. This embarrassing situation was not due to any lack of academic success, my qualifications as a job candidate, or any blemish on my permanent record, but simply because my disability labeled me as unemployable in the eyes of society. Since that day, I have been driven to prevent this form of injustice from happening to myself and others with disabilities.

I have dedicated my undergraduate and graduate careers to studying and analyzing the barriers that individuals with disabilities experience in the labor market. My time at Syracuse University has allowed me to examine the relationship between labor market inequalities and disability. It has been well documented that individuals with disabilities experience significantly lower levels of employment and earnings than those without disabilities. In fact, studies show that the employment rate for individuals with disabilities has substantially declined over the past few decades, while the rate for people without disabilities has increased. Research also suggests the majority of people with disabilities who are employed are segregated into low-wage, low-skilled jobs. Scholars have cited numerous policy barriers, demand-side (structural) factors, and individual-level characteristics that contribute to the chronic unemployment and underemployment of individuals with disabilities. My dissertation builds on this prior research by examining for whom and under what circumstances these disadvantages occur, and the consequences of these disadvantages on the lives of those with disabilities. 

I received my Ph.D. in Sociology from Syracuse University with a specialization in disability in August 2021 and joined Cornell University’s Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability later that year.