Rianon Wallace-Demby

[Image Description]: Rianon wears a graduation gown and white dress, proudly showing off her graduation cap.

[Image Description]: Rianon wears a medical mask and has her head wrapped in a blanket and towels.

[Image Description]: Rianon wears a graduation gown and cap. She smiles while sitting beside a statue of Dr James Naismith, a bronze statue of a man with a basketball and peach basket.

Meet Rianon, a disabled marine biologist/environmental scientist starting a masters at the University of Miami.

Tell us about your STEM? What do you do, what do you love about it, what brought you to the field?

Right now, I'm getting ready to start grad school. I will be a master’s student at the University of Miami in Florida in marine biology and ecology. My thesis will revolve around cnidarian genetics/immunity. 

I'm from Kansas, which is a landlocked state, no ocean around us whatsoever. But how I got into marine biology - there was this book that I read when I was a child about a girl who saved a baby dolphin. That was the first time I had ever heard of marine biology.The story was inspiring to my younger self and I thought that maybe I wanted to do something like that in the future. I started looking into marine biology and developing a passion for it, and that’s what got me through a lot of my illnesses and health issues, holding onto that dream of becoming a marine biologist.

I took a leap of faith when applying to labs for graduate school; so many fields and specialities that I was unfamiliar with. All of this was a new experience to me, and cold calling professors was intimidating.  But joining BWEEMS (Black Woman in Ecology, Evolution and Marine Sciences), as well as working with my undergraduate mentor, eventually pushed me in the right direction and gave me the confidence to reach out to professors about working in their labs. When I saw that the founder works at the University of Miami with her own lab, I knew I had to reach out. UM has been my dream school and dream program since high school and I didn’t want to miss out on this opportunity.  We had one of the best conversations I’ve ever had and she invited me to come do research in her lab. My advisor is such an amazing person, always checking in about my mental and physical health. That’s the first point of conversation at any meeting, checking how you’re doing and what’s going on. I knew it would be an amazing lab and an amazing opportunity, so I went for it. I start August 21st, 2023!

My undergraduate was at the University of Kansas, a BS in Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology. I also have a double minor in African &  African American Studies and African Diasporic Languages (Arabic). I did research in a lab focused on microplastics and their impact on freshwater organisms. I was looking at where the microplastics were getting lodged in aquatic organisms, and general research on how they impact the environment as a whole. It was so cool being able to do research on microplastics. I had never heard of them before joining the lab. 

I found out that washing your clothes is a huge contributor to microplastics in our aquatic ecosystems, there's so many microfibers that get shed during each wash! I also found that the microplastics were getting lodged in the upper GI tracts of aquatic organisms. I didn't get to finish that project due to health reasons, but I also know that research is never truly finished. You always leave a project not quite done.

What accommodations allow you to thrive?

I go and speak to each one of my professors. Not everybody is comfortable disclosing what is going on with them, and that’s okay. For me, I will explain my personal situation, how unpredictable everything can be, and how it impacts me - like maybe I'll miss some classes because I'm flaring really bad and my mobility is low.

One of the other things is advocating for yourself, especially when it comes to medical care. I have made a commitment to myself this year that I'm going to put my physical health first, no matter what, so I have been staying on top of that. I use an app to help with this, Notion (https://www.notion.so/). It helps keep me organized during the semester, with notifications for appointments and assignments. That has been huge for keeping me on task and helping me even when I feel like I can’t- with the app I’m able to plan ahead or get back on track. Sometimes if I don’t write something down, I lose it, but staying on top of things using Notion has been very helpful for me.

I also use study apps like LifeAt. It has timers, you can sync your calendars, and you can have ambient backgrounds with music. I’ll have a to-do list with study timers, to help me stay on track when completing assignments.

What advice would you give to someone looking to start their journey in STEM?

Make sure that you have accommodations! Having to prove that you're disabled can be very scary and very intimidating. But make sure that you have accommodations because they have saved me many times when I’ve needed surgery or needed extra time. Having those accommodations in place has made it so that I could graduate college.

Also, as intimidating as it can be, talk to your professors. I know that it can be really nerve wracking reaching out to them and letting them know what's going on, as that's something that I still struggle with a lot. But I've noticed that professors are more willing to work with me when I've kept in touch with them throughout term, versus when I come to them at the end of the semester.

What do you want people to know about being disabled in STEM? 

I wish that there was more grace and patience from the able-bodied community towards those of us that are in the disabled community. I’m so often written off as either being incompetent, or not caring about my studies. I’ve been told that I’m a waste of space. I wish there was more grace, and more compassion. Just because someone has a disability doesn’t mean that they can’t participate, or that they aren’t as equally important as someone that is able-bodied. I don't understand why we're automatically written off so quickly.

I had a professor that berated me in front of another student for not showing up to class the day after I had a surgery. I was ‘wasting resources’, or ‘wouldn’t amount to anything’, because I didn't ‘take my academics seriously’ because I was disabled. 

But we're here, we exist! We do just as good work. But also, we're not here for inspiration. Don't use my story for motivation, or to say that anybody can do it. I really dislike it when stories about disabled people are used to say ‘what’s your excuse? - ’I just can’t stand that. But listen to us. It doesn’t take anything to help accommodate us either. During the pandemic, we saw all the accommodations that could be made, and we saw how things could be made accessible. Don’t take that accessibility away now that the pandemic is ‘over’. Keep things accessible. Sometimes STEM can really feel inaccessible. And I have felt many times that I have wanted to step away from the field, as I felt like an imposter.

Any other parts of your story you would like to share?

I have a connective tissue disorder, as well as some other chronic illnesses and  it's been a journey. It took me 8 years to get through undergrad, I had 5 major surgeries, so I needed to go slow. One of the biggest helps has been accommodations, and explaining what I have, how that impacts me, and what my semester may look like. That has been a journey in itself. 

I've had a professor throw accommodation forms back at me, and then ask me “Why do you people braid your hair like that?”. The discrimination is alive and well. I was a freshman, and that was my first biology class. What was I supposed to do with that? So it's been a very unique combination of ableism and racial discrimination. Especially being a Black woman and having these disabilities, it's been a nightmare.

There's so much ableism and racism intertwined with my story of how I’ve gotten here. I want to be the representation that I wish I could have had when I was going through this. I remember being in my higher level biology classes, and having no one that looked like me. Very rarely seeing a professor who looked like me, let alone someone with disabilities. Each step of the way has been so difficult, and there’s been many times that I’ve wanted to give up. But I made a promise to myself when I was younger that I was going to be a marine biologist, and I’m determined to see it through. I’m finally getting to that point, and that dream is what’s propelling me forward, even when these spaces tell me that I’m wasting time and space. I’m determined to prove everybody wrong. With the health journey that I’ve been on, that dream is why I haven’t given up yet. I think about my younger self, and I owe it to her to see her dreams through. Therefore I will push through, and I will get it done.

Twitter: @RianonMialani