EP #333 - 09.02.2021 - Disability Rights, Activism, and COVID w/Ashley Shew

Today I talk with disability activist and scholar Ashley Shew, professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech.

Ashley Shew is an associate professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech. Her current work, as part of a National Science Foundation CAREER grant, examines narratives disabled people share about technology, that are often different from dominant ways of thinking about disability tech. She is co-editor of three edited volumes in philosophy of technology, current co-editor-in-chief of Techné (the journal of the Society for Philosophy and Technology), and author of Animal Constructions and Technological Knowledge (2017). She works alongside other disabled people on issues of disability rights, inclusion, and activism through her local center for independent living and through the campus group the Disability Alliance and Caucus. Her writing on disabled positionality, tech, and access has been featured within the past 18 months in Nature, AAUP's Academé, and Inside Higher Ed. She is a proud signatory of the Accessible Campus Action Alliance's Statement on "Beyond High Risk," that advises universities in colleges to enact "a new, accessible normal" as pandemic planning continues.