Meet the Inaugural DisCover Fellows Researching Disability Studies and Culture
The Disability Studies Program in the College of Arts & Sciences and Georgetown University’s Disability Cultural Center (DCC) have jointly launched the DisCover Fellowship, a groundbreaking fellowship that supports students from a diverse range of disciplines in developing projects on disability studies and culture.
This year’s cohort of three DisCover Fellows — Phyllis Liu (H’27), Jared Salcedo (G’25, G’27) and Saeed Jude Samra (C’27)— will begin their work in August, and each will be supported with a $2,000 stipend, mentorship from faculty members, regular cohort meetings and a research showcase in the spring. The fellowship’s organizers said that future cohorts will include up to five fellows.
“Georgetown is unique in that we’re one of only a handful of colleges and universities that have a disability cultural center and a disability studies major,” said Amy Kenny, the director of the Disability Cultural Center. “We recognize that we have an exciting opportunity to fund our students’ groundbreaking research projects and educate our broader campus community about the vibrancy and vitality of disability culture and disability studies in every field that our students study.”
The projects will include an artifact — article, film, essay or poem — and culminate in a presentation showcase scheduled for next April. Students will also receive mentorship from Kenny and Libbie Rifkin, the director of the Disability Studies Program. Joel Michael Reynolds, the former director of the Disability Studies Program and a Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of philosophy and disability studies, played an instrumental role in launching the fellowship.
Rifkin said that disability studies is inherently interdisciplinary and crosses different forms of media.
“Disability studies as an academic discipline is uniquely committed to practice and to engagement with the disability community in all of its variety,” she said. “So, as an academic program, it’s really exciting to be able to partner with the DCC to highlight this theory-practice connection that’s so important to our field.”
The fellowship will also bring together undergraduate and graduate students. Kenny said she hopes the inaugural cohort can continue to build connections between the Disability Studies Program, the Disability Cultural Center and the various disciplines that the students are studying.
“Disability culture is for everyone,” she said. “We hope that this is one small way that we can invite the broader Georgetown community into experiencing some of the vibrancy of disability culture and disability studies that we get to experience every day.”
Get to know more about the 2026-27 DisCover Fellows and their research projects below.
Phyllis Liu (H’27)
Human science major in the School of Health
Liu has interests in disability studies, health equity and improving access to care for underserved populations. Her project seeks to understand how medical debt functions not only as an economic burden but also as a structural barrier that shapes the lived experiences of disabled people and individuals with chronic illness. Through a disability studies framework, Liu will investigate how financial toxicity intersects with disability, healthcare access and social inequities to contribute to broader conversations about disability justice and health equity.
Jared Salcedo (G’25, G’27)
Graduate student pursuing a Master of Professional Studies in Artificial Intelligence Management in the School of Continuing Studies
Salcedo’s work sits at the intersection of AI governance, the organizational dynamics of perception and inclusive technology policy. His DisCover project, “The Appearance of Competence: Disability, AI, and the Politics of Being Perceived,” is a longform essay exploring how AI-assisted communication tools are reshaping the way ability is expressed, evaluated and recognized. Pairing illustrative vignettes with analysis grounded in disability studies and AI ethics, the project asks what we are actually measuring when we measure competence in an increasingly AI-mediated world.
Saeed Jude Samra (C’27)
Neurobiology major and disability studies minor on the pre-med track in the College of Arts & Sciences
Samra will be working on a short experimental film, DUST, that explores disability, embodiment and impermanence through interconnected sensory narratives. Inspired by the idea that we all return to dust, the film invites audiences to reflect on the fragility, beauty and shared humanity of diverse forms of embodiment.