Bonnielin K. Swenor

Bonnielin Swenor is an epidemiologist and the Endowed Professor of Disability Health and Justice at The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and joint appointments at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is the founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center, which uses data-driven approaches to shift the paradigm from ‘living with a disability’ to ‘thriving with a disability’. Motivated by her personal experience with disability, her work is focused on advancing equity for people with disabilities, promoting disability inclusion and accessibility, and developing evidence-based and disability-inclusive policies. Dr. Swenor has provided advice and expertise to multiple organizations and agencies, including speaking at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Summit on Equity and Excellence in STEMM, chairing the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) planning committee for the Disrupting Ableism and Advancing STEM series, co-chairing the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) Subgroup on Individuals with Disabilities, and serving as a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ACD Health Equity Workgroup. Her work has been published in leading academic journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and the Lancet, and has been featured in multiple news outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and TIME magazine. Dr. Swenor has a track record of translating research into policy change, as she played a pivotal role in national advocacy that led the NIH to designate people with disabilities as a health disparity population and recently co-led efforts outlining limitations with proposed changes to the US Census Bureau disability questions.