Quant/Mixed
Founder
Currently Active
Neurodivergent Upgrade is my private nonprofit where I leverage both the supply and demand side of human capital acquisition and management to provide holistic services with maximum impact.
Labour Supply Side:
I produce and curate tools for employees and students using prevention-based strategies to inclusion and accessibility.
Labour Demand Side:
I develop techniques for businesses to navigate neurodiversity EDI initiatives. Unlike standards which have been introduced for navigating race and gender, and in absence of professional standards for how to be respectful of neurodivergent employees, I recommend strategies for enhancing communication and generating solutions including:
Navigating conflict by working with the person with disabilities against their barriers, rather than against the person themselves.
More sustainable and intersectional approaches for determining what is reasonable accommodation.
I also help organizations and relevant decision makers learn how to relate to neurodivergent human capital differently and integrate it into their wider product innovation strategy. Examples of clients include top employers like McGill University.
Author
I wrote a book for supporting professors in navigating accessibility discussions and effectively integrating universal design principles into classroom, departmental, and administrative policies. I also curated and created communication strategies for professors navigating accessibility discussions, including innovating on our understanding of reasonable accommodation.
- Strassmann, S. (2023, February 2). Ability and Neurodiversity (Public). https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/T4E37
Climate Change
Our project involved a team effort (3:1) collaboration to assess the challenges and avenues for change to target deforestation issues in the Colombian Amazon.
Project Considerations
- The Colombian context
- Existing climate policies and efforts
- The stakeholders, incentives, and partnership opportunities at play in:
- The private sector
- The public/nonprofit sector
- Consumers
- Amazonian Indigenous communities
Based on (4) we developed realistic and actionable implementation policies for reducing deforestation.
Outcomes
- Produced a formal report of our findings
- Presented our findings in an accessible format
Language Disenfranchisement
In my freshman year of university I pursued, developed, and executed a framework for an economic argument for Indigenous languages. Being the youngest scholar in my BLUE Fellowship cohort, my project was generously funded by Building 21. The framework can be tested empirically with the proper institutional support to access the restricted medical dataset that I would require.