Biography:Jesse Shanahan

From HandWiki
Short description: American disability activist and astrophysicist
Jesse Shanahan
Jesse Shanahan195290.jpg
Born1991 (age 32–33)
EducationUniversity of Virginia
Wesleyan University
OrganizationAmerican Astronomical Society
Known fordisability activism, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

Jesse Shanahan is an American disability activist and AI researcher born in 1991.[citation needed] She co-founded the American Astronomical Society's Working Group on Accessibility and Disability.[1]

Education and research

Shanahan was an Echols Scholar at the University of Virginia, where she studied Arabic linguistics and philosophy.[2]

Later in her undergraduate education, she switched to astrophysics and decided to pursue graduate school. She spent two years at Wesleyan University before leaving the program due to her health and ongoing harassment.[2][3][4] She conducted research in astrophysics, working with Brooke Simmons at the University of California, San Diego and Chris Lintott of Zooniverse.[5] Her main research focused on the spectroscopic signatures of active galactic nuclei and their host galaxies.[6] Between 2018 and 2021 she worked as a data scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton, specializing in humanitarian applications of artificial intelligence and ethics, and since July 2021 she works as a Machine Learning Developer at Peltarion, where she conducts research on AI ethics and bias in natural language processing.[citation needed]

Disability

Shanahan has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic connective tissue disease that causes pain and impacts her ability to move.[2]

She was interviewed by the Science History Institute as part of their oral history project related to disabled scientists.[7]

Writing

Shanahan contributes to Forbes , writing about linguistics and astrophysics,[6][7] and on her personal Medium page.[8] Her social media posts are sometimes included in articles about disability or ableism.[9][10] Shanahan created the hashtag "#DisabledAndSTEM" which is used to discuss experiences with disability in science.[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 "Meet the Creator of #DisabledandSTEM" (in en-US). May 7, 2018. https://500womenscientists.org/updates/2018/5/6/meet-the-creator-of-disabledandstem. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Alaina G. Levine (May 2018). "Profiles in Versatility". APS News. ISSN 1058-8132. https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201805/profiles.cfm. 
  3. Pain, Elisabeth (2016). "How to (seriously) read a scientific paper". Science. doi:10.1126/science.caredit.a1600047. ISSN 0036-8075. 
  4. Institute, Science History (2018-09-19). "When we interviewed @Enceladosaurus for our Scientists with Disabilities #OralHistory project, she described some of the microaggressions she encountered while working on her PhD. #MarginSci #DisabledandSTEMpic.twitter.com/9WBPFvEQCw" (in en). https://twitter.com/SciHistoryOrg/status/1042477223230537728. 
  5. "Jesse Shanahan" (in en-US). http://enceladosaur.us/. 
  6. 6.0 6.1 "Jesse Shanahan" (in en). https://www.forbes.com/sites/jesseshanahan/. 
  7. 7.0 7.1 Torres, Roberto (2018-09-06). "This project is tracking the oral history of STEM researchers with disabilities" (in en). https://technical.ly/philly/2018/09/06/science-history-institute-disabilities/. 
  8. "Jesse Shanahan" (in en). https://medium.com/@enceladosaurus. 
  9. Romano, Andrea (2015-11-11). "Target's on the Naughty List this year for insensitive 'OCD' Christmas sweater" (in en). https://mashable.com/2015/11/11/target-ocd-christmas-sweater/. 
  10. Barasch, Alex (2018-03-14). "Stephen Hawking's Disability Activism Was As Invaluable As his Science" (in en). https://slate.com/technology/2018/03/stephen-hawkings-disability-activism-was-as-invaluable-as-his-science.html.