Student spotlight: Researching health care for Deaf and hard-of-hearing people

Emma Kane, a third-year public policy major from Brighton, N.Y., has spent the past year working at the Deaf Health Laboratory, led by the mentors at the Deaf Health Care and Biomedical Sciences Hub (Deaf Hub) at RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf.

The Deaf Hub was established in 2022 to promote representation of Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals in healthcare and biomedical science careers. It offers supporting pathways to healthcare careers, a network for Deaf scientists and mentors, and research related to the Deaf community and their health.

Kane has been involved with the Deaf Hub since 2023 as a Summer Healthcare Academic Research Program scholar, a Deaf Health Laboratory research assistant, and is now one of the chief research assistants. She has presented at national conferences and local research symposiums about her work.

What kind of research are you doing?  

I’ve been working to find barriers in sex education for Deaf and hard-of-hearing young adults. The goal is to improve access to sexual health resources by gamification and create policy solutions. I also do research on reproductive health experiences of Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals with uteruses to collect data on reproductive health access and experiences of receiving reproductive health resources.

Would you like a career in the medical field?

I never thought about doing research until I participated in the SHARP program. It gave me the full autonomy to figure out what type of research I liked, which was public health research. That led me to develop a research proposal on sex education in the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community. I don’t envision myself working in the medical field, however. I have a huge passion for changing Deaf education through policy work. I aspire to continue researching on the access to education for Deaf and hard-of-hearing kids and provide policy solutions, especially education as a public health issue. I hope to pursue an MBA and possibly a Ph.D. in education policy. My dream is to live in a big metropolitan area, like Washington, D.C. or Boston.

What attracted you to become a public policy major?

Public policy offers a unique intersection of policy, actions, and regulations, but they are not necessarily about making laws. It’s about creating the big picture–this is what attracted me.  I love solving problems and offer out-of-the-box solutions. Public policy requires you to think outside of the box. It’s about creating innovative solutions and practices that can have a huge impact. For me personally, it offers a perfect balance of advocacy and creating innovative solutions and policies that can change the lives of deaf children.

What other activities are you involved with?

The balance between academic and social life, the research opportunities, and the networking opportunities at RIT are amazing. I’m involved with Alpha Sigma Alpha and Student Government. I’m also the newest e-board member for the College Panhellenic Council. Outside of these activities, I enjoy trying new coffee shops around Rochester and across the country as well!