Stoked to join the ranks of PD Soros Fellows

 #redefinethetable #redefine_the_table #autism #disability

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There are likely to be additional roadblocks to higher education when you are a new american and a disabled new american at that. Know that your life too has worth!! Instead of an unmapped path, think of it as a journey of discovery. The opportunity of higher education means not just the chance to get a seat at the table and make contributions to the table, but perhaps to redefine the table itself where you can be part of the change in who all get included in access to spaces and resources. Let's get in there and help redefine the table.

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Disabled or not, ALL of us new Americans deserve to be, and get to be part of the possibility and opportunity that is America.image 4

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Beyond the color of your skin, race, ethnicity and religion, there also exists a range of (dis)ability in New Americans, who face not just the challenges of assimilating themselves in a new country while maintaining their cultural identity, but also navigating unfamiliar systems around disability. It is triple stigma for not just the disabled new american, but families too, who are excluded by association (“courtesy stigma”), not just from the mainstream community but from their own immigrant community as well. We need not just understanding but also importantly, belonging for all.

PD Soros Fellow at Vanderbilt PhD Neuroscience

Can a person feel stunned+super excited AND nervous+disoriented all at the same time. 

It's a veritable sea of emotions swirling inside me. 

The news is rather surreal as I am in the final weeks of undergrad at Berkeley.

Two pieces of news actually.

I’m heading to a PhD Neuroscience at Vanderbilt in fall 2022.

# neuroscience #vanderbilt  #PhD  #Berkeley #Psychology

&

I join the prestigious ranks of the PD Soros Fellows, 2022.

@PDSoros

https://www.pdsoros.org/meet-the-fellows/hari-srinivasan

Who would have imagined this back in 7th grade middle school - special ed classroom where they still were teaching how to spell basic words like c-a-t. The school district had no intention of allowing me anywhere close to any sort of mainstream curriculum or a mainstream classroom. Their nod to mainstreaming was my being allowed to exist in the same school playground with non disabled kids at recess and lunch. Somehow we were expected to pick up skills, perhaps by osmosis, in that crazy noisy environment of screaming running kids

I lost count of the number of special ed classrooms I’ve been moved around during my elementary and middle school years - tossed from one unwilling special ed teacher to another. Imagine the psychological trauma inflicted on a very young child when educators, the ones who are supposed to support and nurture you, themselves don’t want you. Children don't get to attend their IEP meetings, but sometimes these meetings are held in the classroom after school with a classroom aide babysitting me at one end. I remember one such meeting with the special ed teacher loudly insisting I be moved out of her classroom. In kindergarten alone, I was moved 4 classrooms. 

I also remember being in this classroom for sometime in between which was simply called Room 20 at Dilworth Elementary, which was a placeholder for all the special ed kids the district didn’t know what to do with. So the day was mostly walks, story time, circle time - like kindergarten on Groundhog Day repeat day after day, even at age 10.  Anyway, by middle school I had been moved to a segregated special ed only school where I never got even that glimpse of any non disabled peers.

For much of my schooling years, education was like the candy in the candy store with me staring longingly at it through the store window.

It’s surreal, It’s like I’m now making up for all those years and years and years of sheer longing for education, years and years and years of missed education with compounded interest thrown in. It’s the sheer contrast of Room 20 to Berkeley. 

I am incredibly amazed at what quality education can look like at UC Berkeley. The experience gels perfectly with my inherent curiosity and thirst for knowledge; I am continually reflecting on what is taught in my classes and on its multidisciplinary applications. Berkeley is giving me an amazing experience academically with 4.0 GPA, Phi Beta Kappa, Psi Chi, my own research, research labs and also other opportunities like writing for the Daily Cal and teaching an Autism Class. (And yes, it ok to brag some, at times like this)

My 7th grade special ed did not lead to a high school diploma let alone college. Today I stand on the cusp of a PhD program. Just imagine me in a doctoral program! 

More than anything, it was really really really really really really really (can I add a few more "really's") a balm to the soul to hear PhD programs say they “wanted me” and that I was an unanimous selection by the departments.

(I think back on all the special education teachers who did not want me in their classrooms).

The PD Soros fellowship is this extra unexpected icing, a validation - that my life too has worth and I too can be a contributing member of society. That I am thought to be amongst those, “poised to make significant contributions to U.S. society, culture, or their academic field.”  That I too can rank amongst the best of the best.

Getting my picture in the New York Times, is kinda cool too.

The road ahead is still fraught with uncertainties and transitions and there will be many things to navigate and trouble shoot in the next few years of grad school. It is going to be a harder journey given all challenges around my motor apraxia, communication/ behavioral /sensory challenges & anxiety. Fingers crossed for continued patience and understanding from others around me. 

Today is a day to celebrate, to stop, admire and smell the roses of today. I don't think I am that flexible to actually reach my back so I will  give myself that imaginary pat on the back and say,

PD Soros Fellow @ Vanderbilt PhD Neuroscience from fall. Way to Go Hari!!

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News Coverage of Award (link)

Social Media

So nice of Dr Josh Gordon (NIMH Director) to announce news of Vanderbilt and PD Soros at the beginning of the IACC meeting. 

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I should frame this tweet as inspiration and aspiration. 

Words of praise from the legendary Judy Heumann. 

Thank you Judy for your words of praise. We all learn from you and strive to add those additional tiny pebbles that contribute to widening the ripples in the pond of change. 

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Tweet from Prof Allison Harvey, who taught my Treatment of Mental Illness class 

I was a research assistant in her Golden Bear Mood and Sleep clinic for 2 semesters.

Thank you Prof Harvey for your invaluable advice, support and encouragement during the grad school application process. 

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I made it the cover of Berkeley News

Made it to page 5 of the New York Times

Forbes Article by Ann Kirschner

I was spotlighted in a Forbes Article.  

https://www.forbes.com/sites/annkirschner/2022/04/13/hows-that-american-dream-working-out-a-tale-of-passports-and-heroes/?sh=755ec06bd7f7

Making the cover of Berkeley News

#redefine_the_table

I made it to the cover of Berkeley News

https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/04/14/minimally-speaking-autistic-student-wins-soros-fellowship-for-ph-d/

“Hari is a transcendent human being, beyond words in his talents, intellect, kindness, understanding and what he will do, and is doing, for our world,” said Keltner, a leading scholar in the science of emotions.


“Hari has embraced his Berkeley experience to the very fullest in the classroom, research laboratory, on campus and more broadly,” said UC Berkeley psychology chair Serena Chen. “Along the way, he has touched so many people — fellow students, staff and faculty alike — and has achieved so much against formidable odds, to boot.”

 

Nothing to say, an afterthought puzzling oddity.

Nothing to say, an afterthought puzzling oddity.

Last week I won a prestigious fellowship for grad school with an alum that boasts students from elite schools across the US. It is a honor indeed to be recognized and selected and I am so over the top. 

In the cohort of 30 fellows, four Indian-American students won the fellowship which was mentioned in a few Indian newspapers as well. 

What I want to highlight is one specific Indian newspaper (not mentioning names here). There was plenty to say on the accomplishments of the other 3 non-disabled Indian-American students who are indeed quite accomplished. I am in deep admiration of their accomplishments. 

However, when it came down to talking about me,  it was like they were puzzled as to what to say around what my accomplishments were (if any). Other than Berkeley, graduating, disabled. I don't fit into their standard stereotype of the newsworthy nondisabled Indian-American student that makes it into a top school and probably has a dozen inventions or patents along the way. If I had been a nondisabled student helping the "usual objects of pity" disabled community with some invention, well that would have been newsworthy. It was like they were were struggling to write about this puzzling oddity of a disabled Indian student, who did not quite belong in their column, but would look bad for them if they left out altogether. 

The sad sad irony in all this is that this is a Bay Area paper. I was born and have lived in the Bay Area all my life. 

The point here is not my wanting more lines of mention around any accomplishment in an Indian newspaper. It's the feeling of being placed in the "other" group, of feeling that I don't "belong" in my own ethnic community. I felt quite sad.  

Should I be surprised? After all, growing up, I've pretty much been ignored and not included by the nondisabled Indian kids who lived on my street in a South Bay neighborhood dominated by Indian and Chinese kids. We lived on the same street but in different Marvel multiverses. I simply did not exist in their world. They did grace my doorstep exactly once a year, at Halloween, arms outstretched for their share of candy. Understandably, Halloween is my least favorite holiday as it is a painful reminder of non-inclusion. 

And lets not forget, in the not so distant past of 2015, the Gopal family in Sunnyvale had been sued by their neighbors and forced to move - one of the reasons being an autistic kid on the street reduced property values in the high priced Silicon Valley neighborhood. 

Of course I cannot generalize my entire community - There are exceptions and I am so appreciative of those "gems" who crossed paths with me.  

The point again of this whole piece- media representation matters. Else the stigma around disability will just continue from one generation to the next. 

Think about it. Given that autism is the fastest growing neuro-developmental disability of today, it is highly likely that a near and dear one of yours will have autism sometime in the near future. Is stigma and exclusion really what you want for that person you care about? 

Inclusion and reduction of stigma does not have to be an unattainable illusion. 

It can be a reality. Let's start on that today. 

Neurotypical Syndrome

Flipping the script. LOL 

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From the satirical Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical:

Autism is a natural neurological variance, not a disorder. So when those who follow the medical model refer to Autism as a disorder they are spreading scientific errors, cultural value judgments that teach Autists that there is something wrong with them, which is why so many of us hate ourselves.

Neurotypicals are "different"—from us—but we don't try to make them behave Autistically.

~

 

Disability Rights through time

Presentation on Disability Rights Timeline by students in my 1:54 Autism Class. 

Image Credit Oliver Maynard & Sridha Hordagoda