Food for Thought: A series of public events featuring research and creative projects by recent CAS Associates and Fellows.

We are delighted to showcase the work of some of our most productive and creative faculty in this informal series of intellectually and spiritually invigorating presentations. You are invited to drop in when you can to learn about the exciting projects undertaken by our faculty.

11:00am-11:45am: Kimberly Mack, CAS Associate 2025-26, English

More information to come!

Noon-12:45pm: Laura Hetrick, CAS Associate 2025-26, Art + Design

Beyond Voice: Reclaiming Neurodivergent Subjectivity as Knowers, Storytellers, and Scholars

During a recent Center for Advanced Study appointment, Laura Hetrick completed drafts of two book-length projects that center neurodivergent voices and experiences. The first, Neurodivergent Scholars Speak: Reclaiming Voice in the Academy, brings together neurodivergent academics to examine how higher education can better recognize, support, and learn from neurodivergent ways of being and knowing. The second, A Flamingo Among Penguins: Growing Up Undiagnosed Autistic, is an autoethnographic work that uses personal storytelling, humor, vulnerability, bird illustrations, and anthropomorphic avian narratives to illuminate the experience of growing up autistic without a diagnosis.In this lecture, Hetrick reflects on the process of completing these projects and discusses the broader importance of lived experience as a source of knowledge. By bringing together scholarly inquiry and creative storytelling, she explores what becomes possible when neurodivergent people move from being studied to speaking for themselves.