Deaf Scientist
Research
Stories of 6 Deaf Scientists
How they overcame different difficuties and achieve success in the field of Science and Stem
What is the Research About?
Deaf people have always seemed to be discriminated from the normal people because it is believed that this group of people are physically handicapped due to congenital or acquired factors. Many people even think that deaf people are at a disadvantage in other ways than the normal people because they feel that they can't hear and can't speak comparedto the general population. Research in the field of science has always been the cornerstone for the advancement of human society, and indeed the deaf community has contributed much to the advancement of science. This research aims to dispel the stereotypes about deaf people in contemporary society and to show how deaf people have contributed to the development of science through their own efforts and passion by researching the personal experiences of famous scientists of today and history. This research will focus on six famous deaf scientists.
Conclusion We have
Based on the personal experiences of these deaf scientists we can see that whether they were partially or completely deaf, male or female, they actually made important contributions to the development of science. The one thing we can find in common is that they did not care if they were physically different from the general population, and they all relied on their passion as well as their interest in astronomy to help them make their mark in the field of science. It is not only the passion that is important to these three Deaf people in science, but to others as well, and interest often helps people to achieve their goals. In addition to interest, there are also other factors that influence the success of these Deaf people. Focusing on Annie's and Mengnan’s personal example, we can see that family plays a huge role. We can see that the role of the family was crucial because they gave these two people the courage to face the difficulties. At the same time, I found that every one of them suffers from invisible discrimination to a greater or lesser extent, and that even in a society that pursues equality, the "special care" given to these people actually reflects a kind of differentiation between the deaf and mute groups. They all have a love for what they do and they all have in common a good family environment and a family atmosphere that supports them in their scientific endeavors. But in reality, there are actually a lot of Deaf groups in our society that are missing opportunities for people like the ones I've investigated, and it's possible that's why the Deaf groups that are able to thrive in STEM fields are very small in our society.
The Scientists
Robert G. Aitken(1864 - 1951)
Robert G. Aiken is a famous astronomer whostudied binary stars, satellites, planets and comets. During his career as an
astronomer, he discovered a total of 3,100 binary star and he also contributed a lot in the studying of the satellites.Annie Jump Cannon(1863 - 1941)
Annie was an American astronomers whose cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar
classification. She is credited with the creation of the Harvard Classification Schemes, which was the first attempt to organize and classify stars based on their temperatures and spectral types. She was nearly deaf throughout her
career as a result of scarlet fever. However, it made her immerse more in her exploration of Astronomy.Olaf Hassel (1898 -1972)
Olaf Hassel was a Norwegian amateur astronomer.He is known for his discoveries of the comet Jurlov-Achmarof-Hassel in April 1939 and the nova V446 Herculis on 7March 1960.
Johanna Lucht
Johanna such was born deaf, which means she has had a hearing impairment from birth. As a child, she did not have any access to language, which made her not communicate with others and read. Due to limited resources for deaf people in Germany during her childhood, Lucht struggled with communication. She developed an understanding of mathematics before acquiring language. At the age of nine, she learned her first true language, American Sign Language (ASL), followed by English.
Mengnan Jiang(江梦南)
Jiang Mengnan was born in 1992 to a Yao (China'sethnic minorities) family in Yizhang County, Chenzhou City, Hunan Province. Her parents named her to symbolize the dream of Jiangnan and the peacefulness of the years. When she was half a year old, her peaceful and beautiful life was shattered when she suffered from severe neurological deafness due to ototoxic drugs.
Amy Fornah Sankoh
Amie was born in Sierra Leone, a country ravagedby civil war, and faced the additional challenge of losing her hearing at a
very young age, around three years old. This early adversity shaped her life in profound ways. Her early years in Sierra Leone were marked by the struggle to succeed in elementary school due to her inability to hear.