In 2009, Nintendo sold over 26 million units of the Wii active videogaming system, giving rise to active videogames, or AVG, and revolutionizing the gaming experience. Now, Dr. Christen Mendonca is using pilot grant funding awarded by CEDHARS in February 2022 to potentially develop a new revolution to the gaming experience – this time with regards to inclusivity and accessibility.

Before the mid-1970s, most children with disabilities were educated in “special” schools for “special” children. The word in itself was offensive to parents and children who didn’t want to be labeled special; all they wanted was to be accepted. Sadly, children with disabilities would “graduate” from a school system completely void of any social contact with their so-called peers, and significantly underprepared to enter college, let alone the workforce. Many returned home to live with their parents for much of their adult life.

We often take for granted certain terms or phrases we hear in the media describing a person who happens to have a disability. Many of us presume (incorrectly) that if it’s heard in the media, it must be okay. Unfortunately, when it comes to “characterizing” someone with a disability, disability scholars refer to this as judgmental terminology or ableism.

Although Dr. Vu Nguyen knew he wanted to be a doctor as early as seventh grade, the self-proclaimed lifelong learner had some of his most impactful professional experiences in the military.

Dr. Byron Lai is hard to pin down, both literally and metaphorically.

With a career spanning across four decades, Dr. Mohan Thirumalai has paved the way for groundbreaking research at the cross-section of medicine and technology. Thirumalai joined the UAB/Lakeshore Research Collaborative before its surname ever included UAB or Lakeshore.

Several years ago, a good colleague of mine, Jim Charlton, wrote a classic book titled Nothing About Us Without Us. At the time of publication, the disability rights movement was riding the crest of civil rights legislation with its own passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, better known as the ADA.

When a young Christine Ferguson stepped onto the campus of the University of Alabama as a wide-eyed freshman pre-med student, she had no idea that a personal interest in health would spark a flame that has now grown into a full-blown blaze of research.

My name is Stephen Lanzi, and I am the new communications specialist at CEDHARS and the UAB/Lakeshore Research Collaborative. I am extremely excited for this opportunity to promote and advance the mission of CEDHARS and the Research Collaborative, and I hope you join me in this newsletter as we look at all the groundbreaking research CEDHARS and the Collaborative have to share.

I am pleased to share with you the inaugural CEDHARS newsletter. Realizing how busy we all are, the purpose of one more email needs a strong justification; we have several.