In this week’s Fellow Feature, we highlight Taylor Hill and Elizabeth O’Karma – graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Audiology.
Meet Taylor and Elizabeth
Taylor is from Allentown, PA. When deciding on where she wanted to go for undergrad, she knew that she wanted to go to a big, Division 1 sized school. “I really wanted somewhere that had a good medical base,” Taylor explained. “Pittsburgh was it! It was far enough from home, but still in state, so that was a nice bonus.”
Elizabeth is from Philadelphia, PA and immediately fell in love with the city after visiting. “I came to Pitt for undergrad and really loved it here; so, I decided to stay for grad school!” While Elizabeth started in business, she says she “fell into audiology” after attending a health professional conference -solidifying that she wanted to work with people with hearing loss.
Taylor and Elizabeth have always been involved in service, and it has been an important part of both of their lives. Taylor has been involved with other organizations, working with pediatric cancer patients, and she traveled to New Orleans to help the continued efforts to clean up years after Hurricane Katrina. “My experiences have really driven me into service,” Taylor said. “I think it happened with this project too. I saw this need, and I wanted to take action.”
Elizabeth also got involved in service from an early age, starting with helping during an after school program at her mom’s school. In undergrad, she stayed involved, volunteering for the Pitt dance marathon. “I really try to get involved in service when I can,” Elizabeth explained. “It’s hard as a graduate student; Schweitzer is really a good way to incorporate service into my graduate program.”
Taylor and Elizabeth’s Schweitzer project is called DEFY (Deaf Experiences for Future Years). Working with the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, the project empowers students to advocate for themselves, teaches students about their rights, and helps them overcome barriers to the hearing world. “We will be working with high school aged students – 16 to 21 years-old,” Taylor said. “We’ll be focusing primarily on that group because those students have to prepare either for college or the workforce – and the real world in general.”
Taylor went on to explain that these are residential students, which means they live on campus Monday through Friday and then go home for the weekends. “They’re around people who are singing in American Sign Language and are interacting in their language, but they also realize that when they go to Panera, the cashier probably isn’t going to know ASL.”
DEFY will prepare the students for those types of situations and more like going on interviews, to the movies, to the grocery store, etc. “We are preparing them with skills that we use every day and that are almost inherent to us because we are exposed to them,” said Taylor. “These students aren’t because they live in a residential school. We will show them how society expects them to act in those situations and how they can get what they need in those situations.”
Elizabeth went on to stress that the project is about empowering the students, not just coming in and doing things for them or talking at them. “We just want to be the lab,” she said. “This project is the practical part because they can talk about doing all of these things but putting it into practice is so much harder. You can understand the concept, but doing it is a totally different story – and that’s what we want to focus on with DEFY.”
Taylor agreed, saying, “We think the school is doing a great job. We just want to support and help wherever we can.”
To support Taylor and Elizabeth and their DEFY project, you can make a donation for gift cards, to cover field trip expenses, and more. Click here to make your secure online donation.
