Awards support doctoral research on advocacy training for youth with autism, reentry after incarceration for people with disabilities


By Laurel White

Two doctoral students in the School of Education’s Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education have received nationally-competitive grants to support their dissertation research on advocacy training for youth with autism and the reentry experiences of African Americans with disabilities after incarceration. 

Sara Park and Marcus Weathers were selected by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) as recipients of 2024 Merit Switzer Research Fellowships for Doctoral Dissertation Research. The funding will help support Park and Weathers for one year as they conduct their research.

According to NIDILRR, the Merit Switzer Research Fellowship Program aims to build research capacity by providing support to highly qualified individuals, including individuals with disabilities, as they conduct research on rehabilitation, independent living, and other experiences and outcomes of people with disabilities, particularly related to community living and participation, employment, or health and function. The organization awards five fellowships each year.

Park

Park’s dissertation is focused on developing and evaluating an internet-based advocacy training program for transition-age youth between 16 and 25 years old with autism. Through the program, Park hopes to improve civic engagement and career self-advocacy among those youth, and is interested in exploring whether socio-political advocacy skills translate to self-advocacy in the workplace.

“I am passionate about the full inclusion of transition-age youth with autism in our society,” Park says. “I believe this research can help youths achieve positive career outcomes and explore diverse career paths.”

Park hopes her work will help fill a need for self-advocacy interventions that include autism acceptance and positive disability identity development.

“I’m incredibly passionate about this work and eager to continue it after graduation, wherever my path may lead,” she says.

Weathers’ dissertation is a qualitative exploration of the reentry experiences of African American returning citizens with disabilities post-incarceration.

Weathers

“I believe this is an important topical area because individuals with disabilities are overrepresented in the criminal legal system and African American individuals have a longstanding history of being over incarcerated; yet there is limited research that understands their transition post-incarceration from an intersectional standpoint,” he says. 

Weathers hopes to elevate the needs of disabled returning citizens in the field of rehabilitation services and to create more resources tailored to their unique rehabilitation needs. He aims to do so by creating research-backed resources built with input and insight from with individuals with relevant lived experiences.

“I believe it is necessary to build this information from the ground up,” he says. “There is so much knowledge we miss out on because we don’t always look in the right places.”

Both Park and Weathers are working with professor Tim Tansey as their primary dissertation advisor. Tansey directs the Innovative Partnership for Advancing Rehabilitation Research and Training (IPARRT), a research lab housed in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER). The lab recently received $17 million in new federal grants aimed at expanding job training and career support programs for individuals with disabilities across the country. He also leads the Vocational Rehabilitation Technical Assistance Center for Quality Employment, a project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.

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