Earlier this year, the Center welcomed the first cohort of Research Assistants (RAs) to join our Mellon-funded Access for Small Arts Partnerships (ASAP) grant. At the heart of ASAP are the innovative access initiatives happening at NYC’s small arts organizations. These projects form a growing edge of possibilities for creative, curatorial, and archival approaches to

The NYU Center for Disability Studies is happy to welcome two Fulbright fellows in disability arts for the 2025/2026 academic year. You can read more about their work below. Júlia Ayerbe is a Spanish-Brazilian contemporary art researcher. Her work focused on dissident corporealities, accessibility, and publishing practices. She is a PhD student in the Art

Photo by Cassidy Duhon. Gotkin will contribute to NYU’s disability-centered research, teaching, and partnerships. Following a national search, the NYU Center for Disability Studies (CDS) has hired scholar, organizer, and artist Kevin Gotkin as its inaugural Assistant Director. Gotkin has been a member of the NYU community since 2007 when they began their undergraduate studies

The three-year grant will support Mills and the NYU Center for Disability Studies in running the Access for Small Arts Partnerships program. A 2017 gathering that helped spark the ASAP program. Photo by Earl Cabbell. Mara Mills and the NYU Center for Disability Studies (CDS) have been awarded a three-year, $1,045,000 grant from the Mellon

Kevin Gotkin has been dialed into disability worlds since 2012 as an access ecologist, teacher, writer, artist, and scholar. Before joining the Center for Disability Studies as a Postdoctoral Fellow in September 2025, they led disability economic justice initiatives as Artist-Organizer with Creatives Rebuild New York. From 2016 – 2019, they helped cultivate a broad platform for

A chronicle of ableism and disability activism in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic. How to Be Disabled in a Pandemic documents the pivotal experiences of disabled people living in an early epicenter of COVID-19: New York City. Among those hardest hit by the pandemic, disability communities across the five boroughs have been disproportionately

In 1974, Open Circuits: An International Conference on the Future of Television gathered dozens of prominent artists, curators, academics, writers and television producers to discuss conflicting perspectives on the medium of artists’ video and its cultural impacts. Held at MoMA and sponsored by the Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), the event was considered a watershed moment in media

Meesh Sara Fradkin (CDS Visiting Research Scholar) and Andy Slater are the recipients of a 2024 MAP Fund grant for a sound installation and performance, fiscally sponsored by Experimental Sound Studio. MAP Fund is one of the longest running, private funding sources for new performance works. Experimental Sound Studio is a Chicago-based nonprofit organization dedicated to artistic

Disability studies has gained prominence in recent years, transforming fields ranging from design to literary studies with insurgent approaches to access and representation. The newest volume of Osiris, “Disability and the History of Science,” extends this movement to ask how disability has been a central, if unacknowledged, force in the scientific disciplines and the history of

The NYU Center for Disability Studies announces a new book series “Disability in the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine” to be published through Johns Hopkins University Press. CDS Director Mara Mills joins Jaipreet Virdi and Wayne Tan as Series Editors. A banner featuring a graphic illustration of a person’s facial profile. They are wearing dark glasses, a face mask, and their