VIDBE-Q 2025 Volume 70 Issue 3
I've been a student advisor for our Council of Exceptional Children
University Chapter and given countless opportunities to pour into our rising
teachers, conceptualize and execute research projects, disseminate, network, build
specialized expertise through clinical and methods training, write grants, and aim
for those high expectations. My mentors noticed a level of professionalism, applied
teaching, scientific ability, and care for the field, and pushed for my very best. As
advisors, Dr. Root and Dr. Tuttle have aimed at developing my professional
identity, research skills, and service to the field as a future education scientist
through guided apprenticeship activities that strategically equip me to be an
influential scholar and researcher, as is characteristic of their own reputation and
endeavor.
As a PhD scholar graduating in the Spring of 2026, I aspire to enter
academia as a tenure-track professor at a research-intensive university to become
my role models. It is my goal to turn their investment into viable solutions for both
fields to the benefit of students colliding these professions. I aim to work with the
65% of students with VI who have additional and multiple disabilities and may not
be receiving adequate services through our education system (Hatton et al., 2013;
Gaber & Huebner, 2017; Schles, 2021). I aim to investigate how vision is impacted
in individuals with developmental disabilities across the lifespan, beginning with
ASD+VI (my first experience, inspiration, and continued draw back to the vision
