Inclusion by Example: Adventures of a Blind Woman Navigating the Oceans of STEM Professionals

by Amy Bower

From the Editor: As the last presentation of Sunday, July 7, this was one the audience found well worth the wait. It includes drama, accomplishment, and breaking barriers all in one well-constructed address. It also speaks to ongoing battles many of us have in school, in the workplace, and in reconciling what we need with the concepts of independence, interdependence, societal obligations, and economics. There is no question that for most of us the battle of accessibility has been far more challenging than the work we are paid to do.

Dr. Bower is a physical oceanography senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution located in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Here is what she said to our convention:

Thank you, President Riccobono. Are you ready for a sea story? Well, thanks for sticking around. I hope you won’t be disappointed.

These are words you never want to hear if you are on a ship at sea: "Attention, all personnel! Return to your staterooms immediately, and lock all your staterooms and passageways. A hostile vessel is circling our ship."

No textbook and no classroom and no advanced degree can prepare you for a pirate attack on the high seas. But this is exactly what I experienced in 2001 as an oceanographer on an unarmed research ship in the Indian Ocean.

Before I tell you how this turned out—I’m going to keep you waiting a few minutes—Let me rewind a few decades. Growing up in a small coastal community north of Boston, Massachusetts, I fell in love with the oceans. Yay, Mass! An insatiable curiosity had me turning over every rock at low tide to see what was hiding underneath and wondering what else laid below the waves. I was also curious in the classroom. I took nearly all the science and math classes offered at my small high school and found physics, oddly enough, to be the most interesting. So that is what I chose for my college major. But I quickly realized that most physicists focus on the invisible particles that are inside atoms, whereas I was more interested in the physical environment that we all experience every day: wind and weather, ocean waves and tides, and how it all fits together to shape our planet.

But exactly how I would turn my interest in these topics to a career was uncertain until I signed up for an off-campus college program called Sea Semester. It appealed to my sense of adventurous spirit, sailing for six weeks offshore on a tall ship and learning everything about the oceans: its science, its history, its literature and its policy.

There I discovered there is a field called physical oceanography. I bet you never heard of it. This is the study of the physical forces that drive motion in the ocean. Now I knew how I could combine my training in math and physics with my passion for understanding how our planet works. Because, after all, to be good stewards of our one and only home, we need to understand what natural forces make our life on this celestial planet possible.

To be a physical oceanographer, I went off to graduate school. Starting in my very first year, I was involved in research expeditions to the Gulf Stream, where I learned to use sophisticated instruments to study the three-dimensional anatomy of this massive and important current. I loved it: the adventure, the sense of exploration, camaraderie that develops during remote fieldwork like this. I was completely hooked.

The frequent storms that I rode out with my shipmates at sea in those early graduate school years did not prepare me for what happened next. In my third year of grad school at a routine eye exam, an abnormal blind spot was discovered, and shortly after that I was diagnosed with macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, a twofer.

Accompanying this totally unexpected diagnosis—no one in my family had a similar eye condition—was the demoralizing advice from an ophthalmologist to change careers and consider a career in science administration instead of research. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with administration, but it’s not what I wanted to do.

At that time I had not heard of any scientist anywhere in any field who was blind or had low vision. In fact, I didn’t know a single person who was blind or had low vision—not personally.

I wanted to be an oceanographer and go to sea and do research on ships. Could I still do that? I was no longer sure.

The uncertainty in the prognosis was as unsettling as the diagnosis itself. I was informed that I would likely become fully or totally blind over some unknown number of years. It could be several years or several decades.

But since I’m standing here before you now as a physical oceanographer who is blind with thirty-five years research experience behind me, you know I did not take that doctor’s advice. [Cheers and applause] Instead, I signed up to see a low-vision specialist who had a totally different attitude. He had that positive can-do attitude. I think it helped that he was a sailor and understood the excitement of living and working on the ocean. He introduced me to various assistive technologies, and I started believing that maybe I could continue my graduate studies in my chosen career.

Indeed, I finished my PhD and then started my professional career as a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute or WHOI [pronounced Hooey] as we call it for short. It’s on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Yay, Mass!

So what do oceanographers do? Many think that we only study what are sometimes called charismatic megafauna. Anybody have a guess about what that is? Yes, whales, sharks, and dolphins. Yeah, the kinds of things we typically hear about and see in movies or read in books like Moby Dick or JAWS or whatever. But oceanography is actually a vast field of study focused on a highly complex physical, biological, chemical, geological environment that covers 70 percent of earth’s surface. It is intricately connected to our climate and therefore to all life on earth. It’s in constant motion from waves at the surface to slow moving but powerful currents in the abyss. These currents creep along more slowly than walking speed—maybe three or four miles an hour or less—but they transport huge volumes of salty water, heat, tiny marine organisms, as well as greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

But where do all these currents go? Are they changing as the planet warms? It’s not easy to figure this out, and this is why. Below the sunlight surface, the ocean is a very inhospitable environment for both humans and the most sophisticated research tools. There is the crushing weight of the water overhead. You know if you pick up a gallon of water, it’s pretty heavy, right? Think of millions of gallons of water.

There is the cold—about three degrees Celsius through most of the deep ocean. There is corrosion. If not well protected, oceanographic instruments will just stop working with exposure to saltwater. And it’s pitch dark. No one, sighted or not, can physically see what is going on with the currents at these depths.

So how do we measure ocean currents then? With my research team, I release hundreds of freely drifting buoys in currents more than a mile below the sea surface, and we track them under water using sound as they trace out the pathways of ocean currents across entire ocean basins from months to years. Using these and other tools, we have discovered how one current can change the path of another current deeper in the ocean. We’ve learned how warm currents in the Gulf of Mexico fuel hurricanes, which are going to be bigger in the news this year, and how rotating features the size of Rhode Island trap salt, heat, and marine organisms in their swirling currents, like a slow-moving tornado, and transport them thousands of kilometers across the ocean; think Dorothy in her house in the Wizard of Oz, but in slow motion.

The most thrilling aspect of being a physical oceanographer for me is going out on research ships. Just for the record, these are not the Love Boat. These are not cruise ships. They have large working decks, science labs, dorm-like state rooms (no luxury living), and cafeterias. And maybe if you are lucky, you get an exercise room with a few weight machines.

I’ve sailed extensively around the Atlantic and Indian Ocean on these ships, staying at sea for up to six weeks at a time. You don’t go into port every night. If you’re out there, you’re out there.

After I lost most of my useful vision, I had to give up working with the equipment on the open deck, but I can still lead the expedition as the primary decision-maker or chief scientist, as we call it. I depend on some sighted assistance, though, because most of the data being collected by the ship is still not accessible in real time for blind or low-vision scientists.

On one such expedition in 2001, I was chief scientist on a research ship in the Indian Ocean. This should start to sound familiar. The currents in this remote region were a complete mystery, and we were mapping them for the first time. While on station off the coast of Somalia, we noticed a small boat approaching with six men on board who appeared to be wearing some kind of uniform, maybe like a local Coast Guard. But they didn’t contact our ship by radio, which would have been normal operating procedure. Instead, they circled around our ship, shouting words we couldn’t hear. Then, suddenly, one of them stood up and brandished a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Immediately recognizing the danger, our captain quickly got our ship underway at top speed. We had to get away. But the top speed of this ship is about fifteen miles an hour. That’s about as fast as a bicyclist on a good clip. The other boat, which was faster, started chasing close behind. Everyone on our ship was ordered to their state rooms and told to lock the doors. Why? In case, what we now realized were modern-day pirates, got on board our ship. For about an hour, they trailed close behind us, firing rifles and grenades at our ship, trying to get us to stop so they could get on board.

But our captain knew much better. He knew we had to keep moving, because it’s almost impossible if you’re in a small boat and trying to jump up and climb up the side of a bigger ship if that ship is moving, it’s pretty hard to do. So the captain knew: keep it moving.

Eventually the sea conditions forced the pirates to give up and turn back to shore. Whew!

As it probably would be for you as well, this was one of the most frightening experiences of my life—right up there with trying to cross any street in downtown Boston. [Chuckles] My PhD studies did not prepare me for this test of leadership. Even though no one on the ship was harmed physically, everyone was traumatized to some extent. It was my responsibility, along with the captain, to maintain a sense of calm and carry on with our research, even though I myself was as rattled as everyone else and remember I couldn’t really even see everything going on during this incident. It was all being described to me. I was getting it in second or third person or something.

If you are interested in learning more about modern-day piracy, oceanography, and my career, I welcome you to check out the book Seven-Tenths: Love, Piracy, and Science at Sea by David Fisichella, which is available on Amazon and on BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download).

As a scientist with first low and then almost no vision, I’ve had to navigate a sea of obstacles to be the oceanographer I wanted to be—the single most daunting one probably being my own self-doubt. In the early days, not only was I a super minority in my professional community as an oceanographer with low vision; I was also a woman in a very male dominated field, with just a handful of female peers.

I sometimes felt like I did not belong in physical oceanography. I was afraid I wasn’t good enough, that I couldn’t be successful with low vision, and that any day now my colleagues would figure it all out and kick me out. Some call this the "imposter syndrome." Yes, thank you! But others have argued recently that the imposter syndrome is not really a syndrome at all, but it’s these feelings, which are experienced by many, that are more a sign of an unwelcoming or unaccommodating community, and not an indication of some failing or inadequacy on my part.

Anyway, from my female colleagues I have learned that having a network of peers and mentors with similar lived experience was just as important to a successful career as being able to write a good grant proposal. Luckily, this was just when the World Wide Web was taking off. I know I don’t look that old, but I am. I could search beyond my immediate circle of colleagues for other blind scientists. Indeed, I was able to find and contact a few, all in other fields: none in my own field, but at least it was a start. Around the same time, I searched for support groups for blind professionals closer to home on Cape Cod. I finally found one in Boston, two hours away by bus, but it was the closest one I could get to by public transportation. This was my first significant connection with peers facing some of the same challenges. I made more connections attending the international Ski for Light cross-country skiing events. [Applause] Yay, Ski for Light, where I met many other blind and low-vision outdoor enthusiasts, and many of them also had professional careers.

I started to have more hope that maybe I could not only survive but thrive in my chosen career. Others seemed to be doing it, so why not me? My network and my confidence continued to grow, as my vision declined continuously.

I still had to contend with something important here, which is the tenure clock. Academics usually only have a limited number of years to build an independent research program and demonstrate that they have made a significant impact on their discipline. At the end of that time, it’s up or out. So even with many video magnifiers and screen readers, many research tasks took me a bit longer than my sighted peers. Plus I had to constantly research new assistive technologies and learn to use them, as my vision continued to decline. With all this extra energy and time spent adapting to ever-changing vision, I wasn’t sure I could make tenure.

At that time, academic institutions were beginning to implement "slow the clock" policies, mainly as an accommodation for expectant mothers who were pursuing academic careers. It occurred to me that such an accommodation would be appropriate for someone in my situation as well. I too was experiencing a life event that was going to impact how quickly I could get my research program up and running.

But I had to request this accommodation, and I was hesitant. As far as I knew, no one at WHOI had requested a "slow the clock" accommodation for reasons of disability. With the encouragement of my institution ombudsperson, I did make this request, and to my relief it was granted without hesitation. [Applause] Thank you.

I earned tenure in 1999, and a few years later I was promoted to the highest rank for scientists at WHOI, senior scientist. I was the first woman to achieve that rank in my department.
Over the next twenty years, I continued to grow my research program. Then, in 2018, I was selected by my colleagues to be the next department chair. I wasn’t expecting that. I was, there too, the first woman to serve in that position in my department and also the first blind person to hold any high leadership at WHOI at all. [Applause] This meant I would be responsible for the professional well-being of over one hundred researchers, students, and administrative staff in the physical oceanography department. I would also join the other department chairs, vice presidents, and the president of WHOI to lead our world-renowned research institution of over one thousand employees.

Before I became chair, I was constantly running to keep up with my workload. After I became chair, I had to sprint to keep up with the huge increase in the volume of emails, reports, memos, spreadsheets, budgets, personnel concerns and, oh, by the way, the response to a global pandemic.

Many documents I had to read and digest as a department chair were not accessible, and decisions based on those had to sometimes be made very quickly and often at the same time that the PowerPoint or spreadsheet was being shared with me and the rest of the leadership team for the first time.

Screen reader accessibility was not familiar to this team at all. So it was a big challenge for them to make their documents accessible. They were as busy and pressed for time as I was, making it challenging for them to find the time to make their documents accessible. I had to start pushing publicly and repeatedly for accessible documents to be provided with time to review them, which, by the way, I pointed out would be good for the whole team if we had more time to review them—universal design, right?

This constant reminding, though, was not comfortable for me, but I just kept asking. After all, my department had chosen me to be their representative at the highest administrative level, and I did not want to disappoint them. In spite of my persistence, I didn’t always get these documents in an accessible format at the same time. Life is messy; it doesn’t always work out. I just had to ask a lot of questions and do the best I could.

It was not always an ideal situation by any stretch, but nonetheless I successfully completed my four-year term as a department chair two years ago. This experience made me realize, a little late maybe, that what I really needed to be on a level playing field with my peers in this kind of fast- paced career was an access assistant, a concept I recently learned about from Mona Minkara, a blind assistant professor at Northeastern University. Previously a few staff members in my department were assigned on an ad hoc basis to help make data, graphics, and documents accessible for me, but they had other responsibilities competing for their time and attention. As a result, I often hesitated to request access assistance when I needed it. Finally, last year, I requested that my institution support the salary for a dedicated access assistant, whose only job would be to help make inaccessible information accessible to me. I was so excited when the request was granted. Yay!

As far as I know, this is the first such approval at my institution. Until the STEM fields have embraced independent accessibility, it is my opinion that access assistance is required for one to reach their full potential. This dedicated access assistance has been the game changer I imagined. No longer do I hesitate to ask for help with making information more accessible. I suddenly feel free to be a scientist again, without the extra burden of scrambling for access just to get to the starting line with my colleagues. I wish I could wind back the clock and repeat the last twenty years or so of my career with an access assistant.

Over the past twenty years, I have spent some of my time sharing my experiences with the next generation of low-vision and blind students interested in science to help them realize that they too can succeed in STEM careers. With Perkins School science teacher Kate Frazier, I started an outreach program called Ocean InSight. With other members of my lab group, I visit Perkins classrooms and other classrooms with stories about my career and all my assistive technology and how I have managed to carve out this career with data sonification—which I’m getting into more—and touchable oceanographic equipment for them to explore. We also host an accessible field trip to WHOI every year through the Perkins Outreach Program where students can learn more about all the exciting research going on at WHOI.

At the beginning of my career, the odds seemed stacked against my dream to be an oceanographer. A doctor’s advice to give up on a career as a researcher left me awash with self-doubt. There was no network of low-vision or blind scientists in my field.

Since I began to lose my vision as a young adult, I did not get any official blindness training as a youth. I was racing all the time to adapt to ever changing vision, and all that time the tenure clock was ticking. In my favor has been the supporting encouragement of my family, a somewhat accommodating employer—mostly accommodating I would say—and the energizing curiosity and passion to understand the inner workings of Planet Earth, or more aptly described by Arthur C. Clarke, Planet Ocean. As my network of blind scientists and other professionals grew, so did my self-confidence, my comfort level requesting accommodations, and the realization that, yes, I can do this and, yes, I do belong, and so do all of you. Thank you!