Call for Envisioning Event Participants: Engineering Design to Equip a Neurodiverse Workforce
January 29-30, 2025
Nashville, TN
This is an in-person visioning event for one and a half days.
NOMINATE YOURSELF OR A COLLEAGUE!
This event is appropriate for transdisciplinary experts in engineering and engineering-adjacent professions as well as professionals with direct experience with neurodiverse populations who are interested in charting directions to equip a neurodiverse workforce. This can include researchers, neuro-medical professionals, workplace and equipment design experts, human factor engineers, and others responsible for conceptualizing equipment, tools, and spaces. It is also appropriate for those involved in funding research in these areas. This is an opportunity for you to impact the nation’s engineering research priorities on this important topic.
Overview
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is transforming the nature of work, education, and modern life. Increasing interconnectivity, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI) are driving rapid changes to technology, industries, and societal patterns and processes. The future of learning and work is increasingly characterized by:
- high and increasing levels of cyber-physical-human-AI integration and cooperation;
- the use of digital technologies to connect learners and workers with classrooms and workplaces across locations, languages, and cultures; and
- a rise in flexible learning and work arrangements.
However, the modern classroom, workplace, home, and many public spaces are not universally designed to support the spectrum of neurological diversity. Innovations that equip and promote inclusion are needed for people who experience the world differently, learn differently, communicate differently, express and perceive intent differently, or have cognitive profiles that are ill-served by traditional forms of teaching, workplace management, and daily living.
Almost 20% of the U.S. population is neurodiverse, and studies show this group experiences unemployment or underemployment at rates significantly higher than the general population. For example, a 2021 study aggregated by the National Library of Medicine estimated that adults with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis have an unemployment rate of around 40%, but other estimates put the number closer to 80%.
Engineering and design of effective tools and more inclusive environments could be transformative to unleashing the full potential of a neurodiverse workforce. Studies estimate that optimizing the talent and creativity in this population could yield $100 billion in additional economic productivity annually. Engineering research, design, and new technology development can adapt current environments to equip neurodiverse individuals to thrive in their everyday lives. Progress in these areas has been facilitated by the growing collaboration between researchers in engineering and those in complementary fields. Approaching neurodiversity from a strengths-based paradigm promises to inspire innovations that equip individuals across neurological differences—with accessibility and universal design at the forefront—and can potentially pave the way to a new subfield of engineering: inclusive engineering.
The event will focus primarily on the engineering needed to create comprehensive support systems in all of the spaces that define modern life—where people live, work, and play—so individuals are equipped to thrive in an inclusive and accessible environment. We anticipate interest in this ERVA visioning event from engineers, scientists, technologists, civic stakeholders, investors, and social-impact entrepreneurs.
Agenda Highlights
The fundamental engineering research foci will address these contexts:
- Sensory Experiences: Person-to-Self
- Interpersonal Communication: Person-to-Person
- Activities of Daily Living: Person-to-Environment
- Scaling from the Individual User to Broad Adoption: Person-to-Culture
Within each focus area, participants will consider the technological innovations needed across a continuum that includes sensing, interpretation, and addressing organizational/cultural barriers. We will approach these engineering and design challenges from the perspective of equipping for independence, accessibility, equity, inclusion, and supporting optimization of each person’s potential. We will consider how to inspire and motivate broad adoption of the envisioned engineering solutions by involving human factors research and stakeholder-engaged technology design and development. Some specific areas of engineering and technology likely to be considered include:
- (non-intrusive) physiological sensing,
- machine learning and AI,
- natural language processing,
- computer vision,
- emotion recognition and generation,
- models and frameworks of neurodiverse cognition, emotion, and communication, and
- human-in-the-loop engineering.
The engineering research directions identified through this event are envisioned to catalyze new technology development that is commercially deployed in public and private vocational training centers, schools and clinics, workplaces, and community spaces.
ERVA is now accepting nominations for visioning event participants. Nominees are strongly encouraged to provide a short statement on where engineering resources are most needed to equip a future neurodiverse workforce. Please follow the link below to nominate yourself or a colleague.
NOMINATE YOURSELF OR A COLLEAGUE!
Decisions regarding nominee invitations to participate will be guided by the overall objective of ensuring a successful visioning event. Following a review of nominations, ERVA will notify candidates who are selected to participate. This could also include further contributions during or beyond the scope of the visioning event. Those nominees not selected for this event will be considered, as appropriate, for future ERVA visioning events and other activities.
The Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA), an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation Engineering Directorate, will host a visioning event to roadmap critical areas of engineering that can have a significant impact. The goal of the event is to collectively develop a strategic plan spanning the next 20-50 years of high-impact, high-reward, pre-competitive engineering research-led opportunities that will advance United States competitiveness. The event outcomes will inform future research directions/resourcing across the nation in industry, academia, federal agencies, national labs, and other stakeholders.
EIF is a Core Partner of ERVA.