Disability is a phenomenon that refers to the deficiencies, limitations and restrictions that a person or animal suffers through when doing an activity. The discrimination that this community suffers through is, majorly, because of the ignorance of society. The underrepresentation of people with disabilities is evident in both STEM training programs and the workforce. There are ∼75% fewer individuals with disabilities in the STEM workforce compared to the general population. Despite significant efforts, the STEM disciplines remain relatively non-diverse. The chemistry area is the least diverse out of all these disciplines. Diversifying the study of chemistry will allow this field to enrich with the potential of many aspiring chemists with disabilities. This project will tackle the ways chemistry can be more diverse and inclusive towards people with disabilities, based on previous successful actions and literature reviews, the experiences of chemists with disabilities and inputs from professors involved in chemistry and education fields. The methods to achieve this are proposed to be tested in the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus. Some of the ways these goals can be accomplished are: (1) educating the chemistry community about inclusive languages and assistive devices; (2) having more representation of disabled students and professionals in the chemistry environment to encourage potential students to study Chemistry; and (3) making Chemistry and its laboratories more accessible by introducing students and professors to a computational perspective of Chemistry. Following these actions, there could be a larger number of qualified students and professionals in the chemistry discipline. This socially directed project complies with the goals #4 (Quality Education) and #10 (Reduced Inequalities) of the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals. This proposal is part of CHEMproposals, a project supported by the Millennium Fellowship, aimed to further involve chemists in the 2030 global agenda towards sustainable development.

Normalizing and raising awareness of inclusiveness in the chemistry discipline

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.