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 accessibility.
ASAP is about building feasible pathways to the emergent cultural access workforce. To do that, we are supporting NYU students to work on access projects that arts organizations are forging but don’t otherwise have the capacity to grow.
As students enter difficult job markets and non-profits face compounding challenges, our ASAP grant creates alternative-academic training spaces to seed ecologies of accessibility in NYC. The brilliant work of our inaugural RAs confirms we are on the right path.
We are delighted to introduce the first set of students to join us in this work. Each is working on a unique aspect of the grant, from templating and testing pedagogical tools to direct support for organizations’ project development.
Ray Chen is a creative technologist passionate about advancing disability justice, both in and through art. Currently a graduate student in the Steinhardt School’s Speech-Language Pathology program, they have collaborated closely with disabled artists, activists, and community members in multimedia education, assistive device design, and exhibition planning in the U.S. and Taiwan.
Leo Cheng is a first-year undergraduate student in Contemporary Production & Songwriting at the Steinhardt School. Previously, he was president of his high school’s local chapter of Best Buddies, an international non-profit organization that aims to foster friendships and inclusion for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Leo joins CDS as part of the first-ever Steinhardt Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program.
Clayton Jarrard is a graduate student at New York University’s XE: Experimental Humanities & Social Engagement program. He works in applied social research and policy implementation and is also a host for New Book Network’s podcast channels in Disability studies and LGBTQ+ studies. Clayton’s research considers the affective ecologies of religious environments, including how spiritual experiences can contribute to debility, disability, Madness and mental illness, and suicidality.
Phoebe More is a first-year M.A. student at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts studying contemporary art. She first got engaged with access work through her undergraduate coursework on exhibition development. She has focused primarily on access in museum spaces, in particular the presentation of archaeological material, with a broad interest in disability for and beyond arts education.
Bella Ruhl is a doctoral student in Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU and holds an MA in Global History from the Freie Universität Berlin. Supported by the 2023 Fulbright-Mach Open Research Award, Bella has an article on the history of Wages for Housework, a feminist labor movement, forthcoming from the Journal of Women’s History (2026).