Bioastronautics Symposium: Space for All – Opening Spaceflight to People with Disabilities

Dr. Gifford is an associate professor of Orthopedics and the rehabilitation physician for St. Louis University.  She is board certified in rehabilitation medication,  a senior Aeromedical Examiner for the FAA, and the head of Medical Operations for Astroaccess, a mission to expand inclusion and disability representation on Earth and in space.

Sarah Hasnain is an Engineer, Innovation Program Coordinator, and Founder & Lead of the Human Spaceflight Innovation Network at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Their work is rooted in impactful solutions to critical challenges on Earth and in Space: Systems Integrator for autonomy and dust mitigation via the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC); Project Manager and Lead Inventor of a patent-pending Pulsar-based Autonomous Navigation (XNAV) toolkit; Software Engineer in the Science Operations Center (SOC) for the Dragonfly Mission exploring Titan’s surface and the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) – NASA’s first planetary defense mission. Hasnain’s interests include Space-Earth translational innovation, (analog) astronautics, disability-centered human factors, AI Ethics, and sociotechnical impacts.

Dr. Swenor is the founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center, which aims to shift the paradigm from “living with disability” to “thriving with a disability” through research, education and policy. Dr. Swenor’s research is motivated by her personal experience with low vision and focuses on three overlapping areas: removing barriers to health and economic wellbeing for people with disabilities, addressing health care disparities for the disability community; and ensuring people with disabilities have equitable access to education and are included in research. Dr. Swenor, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, holds joint appointments at the School of Medicine’s Wilmer Eye Institute and in the Department of Epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health.