Empowered by Experience, UGA PhD Student Earns Fellowship to Advance Accessibility in STEM Education
In a single semester as an undergraduate, Madison Livingston received diagnoses for four disabilities. This experience brought new challenges, but it also opened doors to opportunities in education research. Now, she is pursuing a PhD in Comparative Biomedical Science at the Collaborative Opportunity for Research in Physiology and Undergraduate Science (CORPUS) Education Lab. Her focus is on creating new ways to make STEM education more accessible and engaging for students with disabilities.
In her personal statement for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP), Livingston explains her journey. “I realized that my negative views of disability came from a mindset that saw disabilities only as limitations,” she says. “I learned that having a disability can be an advantage in supportive environments.” This realization led her to advocate for others through the UGA Accessibility and Testing’s Speakers Bureau and serve on the Division of Student Affairs Student Advisory Board. She has co-led a workshop on Universal Design for Active Learning at the UGA Active Learning Summit 2025 with Erin Benson, the director of UGA Accessibility and Testing.
Her commitment to improving accessibility has led to research that earned her the prestigious NSF GRFP award. She is one of only 1,000 recipients nationwide and one of just three in science education. Her research project, “Drawing from the Heart,” looks at how drawing can improve motivation and learning for students with disabilities in life sciences. This project uses Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles to change traditional STEM teaching. She points out, “The current system assumes standard course structures, which do not meet the needs of all students. My work aims to create accessible courses from the beginning.”
Dax Ovid, Assistant Professor in Physiology & Pharmacology
Dax Ovid, an Assistant Professor in Physiology and Pharmacology and advisor for the CORPUS Education Lab, notes, “Madison’s leadership in the community of disability advocates shows her potential to improve the science workforce in the United States through her work in Universal Design for Learning.”
Madison has already presented her pilot study at national conferences, such as the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER) and the American Association for Anatomy. She will start recruiting participants for her NSF-funded research in Summer 2025. “My research moves from just accommodating individual students with disabilities to changing the learning environment through evidence-based methods rooted in Universal Design for Learning.”
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The National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported STEM and STEM education disciplines who demonstrate the potential to be high achieving scientists and engineers. Selection of fellows is based on intellectual merit and broader impacts.
