Winter 2023-2024 Newsletter Update from Erika Sanborne

Welcome, newsletter subscribers. (If you were forwarded the Autistic PhD newsletter, please subscribe for yourself.) Hello to others who got here through other pathways (search engines, social media).

Autistic PhD launched about seven months ago. We are still very much in startup mode, but things are sailing along smoothly, all considered. I was going to share a whole list of what’s-in-store or coming soon, but I’ve decided against that. I hope you all will forgive me. What I want to avoid is misleading anyone in case of future delays. The reality is that there is so very much in store, in the form of various blog topics and potential new contributing authors.

Well okay, I’ll tell you one blog series that is forthcoming. How to be a neurodivergent-friendly supervisor, and How to be a neurodivergent-friendly company. These are two separate articles, both in the works. They are both shaping up to be pretty cool and should prove super useful. But I’m not giving other spoilers!

Most Popular Articles

With a global readership, I use privacy-friendly analytics, but I can still say which are the most read articles on the website. Here are the most popular three articles from the past 28 days:

1. What is bottom-up thinking in autism?
2. Dear Students, Grades are points on a rubric nothing more
3. Reflecting on being Married to a Disabled Autistic Person Today

Call for Authors

If you are autistic and you have a PhD in the social sciences, broadly defined, let’s talk if you think you might want to write something for Autistic PhD. I never intended Autistic PhD to be a venue for solely my voice. And I can tell you that I’ve had such awesome conversations with prospective authors during the past seven months.

I think they’re all superstars actually, every single one of them, and I’d absolutely love to be able to share with you snippets from their stories and how those glimpses illustrate something meaningful about autism.

Alas, life comes up for people and they’re not able to do everything. I get it. With peace and love I’d gladly welcome the growing number of any of them to contribute in the future, when or if they are ready, able, willing and interested.

How about you? Can you imagine an intersection between a narrative from your life’s story and something that would be helpful for others to understand and/or discuss about autism? If you’re reading this and you think you might be interested, let’s talk. Please contact me and give me a link to your bio/cv or something that tells me who you are, and any access needs you have, and we’ll make a conversation happen. Okay?

Author criteria are that you are autistic yourself and that you have a PhD or PhD candidacy status. This is not to say that other forms of knowledge are less valuable. They are not less valuable. This is just to say that this is Autistic PhD and this is what we are doing here. If you have another kind of doctorate or are presently completely such, and have interest, it’s a maybe. We can discuss things – please include details when you email.

Research Updates

I wrote out a detailed professional year-in-review, and here I will just share the sort of abstract to that long form update.

I got to share some of my research at Population Association of America 2023 (PAA 2023) in New Orleans, back in April. I will be able to share more of my research at PAA 2024 this coming April in Columbus, OH. This is pretty cool. Both studies use IPUMS-MICS data, disaggregated, and investigate disability, well-being (life satisfaction), and inequality in Latin American subnational regions. I’m psyched about heading back to PAA.

Another cool thing for 2023-2024 is that I was invited by the American Psychological Association (APA) to help create a new national curriculum project for disability and neurodiversity. Also, this is my 20th year as a Senior Adjunct Psychology Professor (literally the worst title ever, I know), and I mostly love it. Mostly. And yes I still do other work that I’m not including here in order to keep focused, but I’ve had to refer out most clients this year due to my health.

I’m definitely restricted by the things I shared in my medical year-in-review post, but I am very grateful to still be here, and my hope is to be #HereInAYear to celebrate my 50th birthday in 2024.

Social Media Channels

Most of you reading this are newsletter subscribers only, and that’s totally fine. I can appreciate that. No pressure, I’m only highlighting a few things. For one, the Autistic PhD facebook page is pretty awesome. (Did you hear them cheering? I did.) At the time of this writing, there’s around 2900 page followers on there. Importantly, fewer than 100 of them are people I know personally. Everyone else? That’s organic community growth, folks coming together because of what we discuss on there. I love the facebook page.

Fun facts about the facebook page: Presently about 60% of the folks on there are in the U.S. and the top five cities represented are the four largest cities in Australia, and then London is #5. Even though most folks are from the U.S., Canada, the UK, and Australia, we do have folks from all over. If you’re on facebook, please sound off (check in) on the check in post. And skim the 400+ comments on there to see where others are from.

For whatever reason, almost nobody follows Autistic PhD on Instagram, Threads, or Youtube. And that’s also fine, although I kinda cringe at the thought of everyone from social media being on just one platform. If you’d like to support the work, following Autistic PhD on 1+ other platforms would be appreciated.

Until Next time

The Autistic PhD newsletter is an irregular, occasional publication, but until next time, whenever exactly that may be, I bid thee good day. 🙂