Sophia Deligiannidis (she/they)
UMass Amherst '27
Breaking Barriers in Research: Enhancing Accessibility and Equity in STEM Opportunities through PROPEL
Through the PROPEL Research Team, I led the two following projects to reduce barriers for students with disabilities in undergraduate research:
1.The Lab Accommodation Project: UMass Amherst has systems to accommodate students with disabilities, but communication about lab accommodations was limited. This lack of communication makes it difficult for students with disabilities to articulate their needs in labs and can make students prone to discrimination in the research setting. I noticed this with my other peers who have disability accommodations that it was difficult to provide our accommodation letters to research labs we were enrolled in through Clockwork, the platform that UMass uses for accommodation letters. To address this, I met with UMass Disability Services to raise the issue and collaborate on next steps, including asking IT to make accommodation letters available to students through Clockwork. These meetings ensured that everyone knew the benefits of making this accommodation option available to students with disabilities, and how it would improve accessibility in research settings.
Moreover, the majority of research labs are registered as Independent Studies. To address this, I helped ensure accommodation letters can be sent to research mentors through Clockwork by aligning research labs with Independent Studies, which appear on transcripts as classes. This lets Clockwork route accommodation letters the same way it does for courses, helping students access needed supports to fully engage in their research and making them feel comfortable advocating for their needs while also increasing mentor accountability and understanding.
2. The Accessibility Improvement Project: Because many students use PROPEL to find research labs, missing accessibility features could deter students with disabilities. To address this, I initiated accessibility improvements using Siteimprove, a website that analyses the accessibility of websites and gives feedback on what aspects to change and what types of change are needed (ie: conformance software testing). I then communicated these changes to the website developers and helped communicate the changes as well as creating the website changes. These updates brought the site into WCAG alignment and raised its accessibility score from 62.4 to 94.5.
These technical changes allow for a digitally accessible website, meeting Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The accessibility score of the PROPEL website increased from 62.4 (inaccessible) to 94.5 (very accessible), making it much more usable for all students seeking research opportunities. These improvements demonstrate how student insight can quickly identify common pain points —knowing where issues occur , who to contact, and which resources to use as a student helps campuses improve the undergraduate research experience as a whole.