Moderator Summaries
The free Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) State of the Science Research Conference was held online on February 26, 2026 and March 12, 2026.
Day 1, February 26, 2026
Researchers shared short research presentations focused on the themes of employment and community living and participation. Below is a summary of the research presentations and moderator insights on each research topic.
Day 1 Session A: Employment
Summaries and synthesis presented by Denise Hoffman, Principal Researcher, Mathematica.
How Flexibility Makes Work Work for People with Disabilities
Presented by LaWanda Cook, Senior Extension Associate at the Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability at Cornell University, on behalf of the Northeast Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Center. This qualitative study considers how flexible work arrangements facilitate work. The researchers interviewed 16 employer representatives with oversight for human resources policy or ADA implementation. The study finds that flexible work arrangements are a feature of an inclusive workplace and reduce the need for disability disclosure. Managers influence decisions about the availability of flexible work arrangements and should consider the potential impact on work quality and skill development.
Disability Employment Policy, Digital Access, and Economic Opportunity
Presented by Fitore Hyseni, Director of Research at the Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University and Research Assistant Professor at the College of Law, on behalf of Southeast ADA Center. This research uses existing survey data from 2018 to 2023 to document differences in employment, poverty, and internet access for residents ages 18 to 67 in eight southeastern states. In these states, people with disabilities had employment rates that were about 40 to 50 percentage points lower relative to people without disabilities, while internet access rates were about 8 to 13 percentage points lower. Poverty rates were about 6 to 10 percentage points higher for people with disabilities.
Use of Service Animals in Employment
Presented by Vinh Nguyen, Project Director of the Southwest ADA Center at TIRR Memorial Hermann and Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston Law Center. This mixed methods study sought to understand the experiences of people with disabilities who use service and emotional support animals in the workplace. Findings from a survey of 222 people indicate that the approval process was more arduous for people with “hidden” disabilities relative to those with obvious disabilities and that employer support was limited for service animals not trained for job-related tasks. Interviews with 17 people highlight the desire for workplace education about proper service animal etiquette and ADA rights related to service animals.
The AI (Dis)Advantage: How Hiring Professionals Choose AI Advice Over Human Judgment in Recruiting People with Disabilities
Presented by Kartik Trivedi, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire. This experimental study tested the extent to which decisionmakers rely on artificial intelligence (AI) advice relative to human advice when making hiring decisions. The results indicate that decisionmakers are more likely to rely on AI advice than human advice, regardless of a candidate’s disability status. These results held even when the AI advice was incorrect.
Employment Research Synthesis
The four projects broadly consider how organizational practices and technology shape access to work for people with disabilities. As work, technology, and society change, the considerations and possibilities for reasonable accommodations under the ADA shift. The discussion below offers insights into each research topic and suggestions for future research.
Flexible work arrangements can create a workplace environment that supports a wide range of people and benefits employers. They may reduce the need for the disclosure of disability status, retain or attract qualified employees, and reduce employer costs when employees already have needed accommodations at home. Recent research links employment gains for people with disabilities to expanded telework following the COVID-19 pandemic (Ne'eman and Maestas 2023; Liu and Quinby 2024; Bloom, Dahl, and Rooth 2025). However, only about 37 percent of jobs are teleworkable (Dingel and Neiman 2020) and people with disabilities are disproportionately employed in occupations that cannot be performed remotely. Dr. Cook’s research highlights the potential for adverse effects on skill development and career advancement. Future research can assess the extent to which people with disabilities maintain recent employment gains linked to telework, document which workers with disabilities benefit from flexible work arrangements, and aim to better understand the mechanisms that lead to flexible work policies.
Digital access can act as a labor market gatekeeper by inhibiting access to training and education to qualify for more jobs, the online pathway to apply for jobs, remote jobs available across the country, and certain job accommodations. Internet access is associated with higher employment rates (Johnson and Persico 2024; Isley et al. 2022). Butrica and Schwabish (2022) find that areas with lower digital access rates are less likely to receive Social Security Disability Insurance benefits–which may contribute to poverty. Thus, the digital divide could be a barrier to both earnings and to public benefits intended for those with disabilities. Dr. Hyseni’s research highlights variation in employment, poverty, and internet gaps by disability status, documenting differences in these metrics across states. Future research should seek to estimate the extent to which digital access affects poverty and employment for people with disabilities, assess the extent to which other infrastructural barriers (such as access to public transit) affect these outcomes for people with disabilities, and describe variation in these relationships based on personal or geographic characteristics.
There has been an expansion in use of service and emotional support animals in recent years. This increase is particularly notable among emotional support animals. Survey data suggests that as many as 18 percent of pet owners consider their pet to be an emotional support animal (Dionio 2026). Research documents the benefits of service animals in finding and maintaining employment (Lindsay and Thiyagarajah 2021), among other documented benefits. Their inclusion in the workforce, however, must be considered as a reasonable accommodation request under the ADA. Mr. Nguyen’s research provides information about requesting and using this accommodation. There are opportunities to expand the knowledge base by describing employer awareness of relevant ADA requirements, employer decision making, and differential experiences by workplace setting.
Advances in technology that enable the job application process may yield an influx of applications, prompting hiring managers to use advanced technology to support their decision making. The use of AI has the potential to streamline work but may be subject to bias, particularly for applicants with disabilities (Nogues 2025; Fabeyo 2025). Federal law holds employers accountable for decisions made, regardless of the use of AI systems. Dr. Trivedi’s research finds no differential reliance on AI relative to human advice for job candidates with and without physical disabilities. However, hiring managers relied on AI, even when it was known to be incorrect. Future research could document the effects of AI-assisted hiring tools on employment outcomes for people with different types of disabilities and examine how AI hiring systems consider reasonable accommodation requests.
Day 1, Session B: Community Living and Participation
Summary and synthesis presented by Professor Katherine A. Macfarlane, Syracuse University College of Law.
Aging with and Into Disability: Navigating ADA Rights in Community and Work
Presented by Ellen Fabian, Research Professor, Center for Transition & Career Innovation, UMD, on behalf of the Mid-Atlantic ADA Center. Dr. Fabian described two studies which examined how older adults use protections offered by the ADA in their communities and workplaces. Dr. Fabian and her co-researchers discovered a direct relationship between the willingness to request accommodations or self-advocate and older adults’ connection to disability organizations. As a result, disability systems must take aging into account and older adults must be educated about the ADA.
Developing a Reasonable Accommodation Decision Aid
Presented by Mark Harniss, Professor in the University of Washington Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, presented on behalf of the ADA Knowledge Translation Center. His project involved the development of a reasonable accommodation support aid to assist individuals with disabilities in deciding whether and when to request an accommodation while applying or interviewing for work, and after securing employment. Interviews revealed that the guide needed to include negotiation strategies, advice about accepting partial accommodations, and identifying role models. Also, providing information in a single document is key, but no matter how streamlined the information, legal concepts are difficult to communicate in a straightforward fashion.
Effective Methods of Engaging with the Americans with Disabilities Act: Participatory Action Research Approach
Presented by Taciana Ribeiro Saab, Project Director, New England ADA Center, a project of the Institute for Human Centered Design. Her remarks described how people with disabilities in hard-to-reach communities do not often advocate for their ADA-provided rights. The survey relied on Participatory Action Research (PAR) and reached individuals residing in majority-minority communities in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Surveys and interviews revealed that though individuals in hard-to-reach communities are aware of the ADA, they are not aware of the protections it provides. Also, individuals who were disabled pursuant to the ADA were nevertheless disconnected from disability as an identity. Information about disability rights was most trusted when provided by individuals who shared the subjects’ language and cultural background. Overall, effective engagement was found to require “listening and authentic” engagement and community partnership throughout the research and design process.
How do Communities Implement Health Solutions? Findings From a Multi-state Evaluation
Presented by Casey Herman, Senior Research Specialist in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois Chicago. Dr. Herman described how people with disabilities struggle to access health promotion programs. The underlying research evaluated the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability community implementation process in 16 communities. Evaluations occurred through regular reporting, technical assistance, interviews and surveys. Findings demonstrated that process’s effectiveness is based on facilitator skills, partner networks, and flexibility. Barriers to using tehprocess included language and documentation challenges, system changes, and implementor capacity.
Community Living and Participation Research Synthesis
Each presentation focused on populations that are often overlooked, especially older workers. Many of the presentations presented novel and necessary research. Dr. Fabian’s observations provide important insight regarding how an older person’s change in living space can radically alter their day-to-day accessibility needs. Moreover, each presentation highlighted creative ways of identifying interview and survey participants. Each strand of research focused on the empowerment of people with disabilities and how to create necessary, practical interventions. For example, Director Ribeiro Saab described her methods as consisting of “research with them,” indicating how she works alongside people with disability rather than treating them solely as objects of study. Dr. Herman’s focus on the use of effective disability imagery reflected an acute awareness of how communities need to see themselves.
The session also highlighted overlaps with the research occurring in legal spaces. Dr. Harniss’ comments about how individuals with disabilities often self-accommodate is echoed in Professor Katherine Macfarlane’s recent research, and past work by attorney and civil rights leader Carrie Griffin Basas. The researchers’ focus on the need for disability role models is also seen in work by law professors Jasmine Harris and Katie Eyer, who have described how claiming one’s disability identity helps encourage other people with disabilities to do the same. Finally, as many legal scholars have also noted, the researchers demonstrated that though the ADA is intended to be self-executing, people with disabilities and their support systems must engage in extensive education and accommodation enforcement. The law’s existence on its own is not enough. As a result, people with disabilities take on unpaid labor.
Several recommendations can further strengthen the underlying research in this field. First, it is necessary to inform people with disabilities about the potential backlash they may face when requesting or enforcing accommodations. People with disabilities, armed with knowledge about the retaliation they may face when enforcing their rights, make rational choices when they decide not to seek accommodations they are legally entitled to. Relatedly, disabled employees and candidates for employment should be informed that they are entitled to keep their disabilities confidential, and that accommodations should only be disclosed to people who need to know about them. Future research should take into consideration how different populations have or do not have information about their disability rights. Though not all people with disabilities are legally literate, many are aware that laws that protect them exist as a result of their experience with advocacy in educational settings, either for themselves or their children. Changes occurring in federal agencies affect people with disabilities’ ability to seek pre-litigation enforcement from the Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Education.
Day 2: March 12, 2026
Researchers shared short research presentations focused on the themes of health and society and community needs and access. Below is a summary of the research presentations and moderator insights on each research topic.
Day 2, Session A: Health and Society
Summary and synthesis presented by Kara Ayers, PhD, Associate Professor at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Improving Accessibility of Hospital Facilities Using Immerging Computational Methods
Presented by Jong Bum Kim, Ph.D., Associate Professor, iLab Director, Department of Architectural Studies at University of Missouri Columbia. Dr. Kim's research team asked a deceptively simple question: What if we could catch ADA compliance issues before a building is ever constructed? Their work on computational compliance checking, embedded directly into design software tools like those in the Autodesk ecosystem, is about moving accessibility upstream—out of the inspection and complaint process and into the design studio.
The traditional model of accessibility compliance relies on someone (often a person with a disability) encountering a barrier, identifying the violation, and navigating a process to report it. That puts the burden squarely on the people who were already failed by the system. The computational approach this team is developing has the potential to shift that burden back where it belongs: To the designers and institutions responsible for getting it right in the first place. With AI and machine learning integrations on the horizon, the applications are likely to grow significantly.
Access to Quality Health Services under the ADA
Presented by Rosielyn Babauta, DNP, MS, RN-BNCP, Assistant Professor at University of Guam, on behalf of Rocky Mountain ADA Center. Dr. Babauta and her team examined what access to quality healthcare actually looks like for people with disabilities in Region 9, spanning Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, and Nevada. This was a substantial mixed-methods study across nearly 850 participants including healthcare workers, people with disabilities, and caregivers.
What they found should give us pause. The barriers they identified—limited disability training among clinicians, inadequate technology and communication equipment, negative attitudes, time constraints, physical environments that don't accommodate people, and transportation barriers to getting there in the first place are not new findings; but they are findings that keep replicating because the systems have not changed. This team did not stop at the problem. They developed and disseminated a registered nurses’ education curriculum and paired it with disability expert panels, centering the expertise of people with disabilities in the training itself.
Findings from ADA PARC: Using Scorecards to Compare States on Participation Opportunities
Presented by Joy Hammel, PhD, OTR/L, Co-PI of the Americans with Disabilities Act Participation Action Research Consortium and Professor in Departments of Occupational Therapy & Disability and Human Development at University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Hammel's presentation on ADA PARC introduced us to a methodology with broad implications beyond the specific resources they have created. By standardizing indicators of participation opportunity across states using publicly available data from the American Community Survey, PARC can produce easy-to-read metrics that let communities and policymakers see, at a glance, where a state is excelling and where it is falling short.
There is something important about making this information available in a format that decision-makers can use. Research that lives only in academic journals does not change policy. Accessible data do. They create accountability, enable comparison, and give advocates a tool to point to when pushing for structural change at the state level. The economic metrics are just one domain and the methodology is extensible. This work has real traction as a knowledge translation tool, especially for communities that have been told repeatedly that things are fine.
Family Support Research and Training Center
Presented by Sumithra Murthy, Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Murthy’s work offered an overview of the Family Support Research and Training Center's multi-strand research portfolio: Five projects spanning aging caregivers, future planning for adults with developmental disabilities, caregiver wellness, national dataset analysis, and policy. What unifies this work is an attention to the caregiving ecosystem that disability often depends on and that our policy structures consistently under resource and under recognize.
The finding from the environmental scan—that the thriving of family caregivers was deeply interconnected with the thriving of the person with a disability—is worth sitting with. We tend to treat caregiver wellbeing as a secondary concern, something to address if there's time and funding left over. The FSRTC's research challenges that framing and makes a case for investing in caregivers not as a separate silo but as a core part of the disability support system.
Health and Society Research Synthesis
Emerging across this work is a consistent illustration that health is not simply a medical category. Health is shaped by the physical spaces people can or cannot move through, by the knowledge and attitudes of the clinicians who serve them, by whether their state has created conditions where participation is even possible, and by the networks of family and community that either absorb or buckle under the weight of inadequate public support. The sections that follow trace those threads across the four studies.
These four studies surface three recurring pressures. First, a persistent gap between what the ADA was designed to guarantee and what people with disabilities actually experience in clinics, in hospitals, in care systems, and across state lines. Second, a knowledge gap: Whether it is clinicians who have not been trained, designers who have lacked accessibility compliance tools, policymakers who have not had data, or communities without adequate support infrastructures. Information and capacity remain unequally distributed. Third, a systems gap: too much of the burden of navigating inaccessible environments and undertrained providers continues to fall on individuals and families rather than on the institutions and governments responsible for change.
Each of these research teams, from different corners of the country and the field, is contributing to closing those gaps. Computational tools put compliance in the hands of designers. Curricula put disability knowledge in the hands of clinicians. Digestible metrics put meaningful data in the hands of advocates. Caregiver research puts family support on the policy agenda where it belongs. The coherence of this work across such methodologically and geographically diverse projects speaks to the depth of the structural challenges the ADA was designed to address, and the sustained effort still required to fully realize its promise.
Day 2, Session B: Community Needs and Access
Summary and synthesis presented by Heather Ansley, MSW, Chief Policy Officer, Paralyzed Veterans of America.
Current Needs of ADA Coordinators Among Title II Entities.
Presented by Jill Bezyak, PhD, Principal Investigator of the Rocky Mountain ADA Center and Professor and Program Coordinator in Rehabilitation Counseling and Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado. Dr. Bezyak’s presentation addressed the current needs of ADA coordinators among ADA Title II entities. A survey of ADA coordinators revealed major obstacles including limited time, staff, and funding, and inadequate training or knowledge about Title II requirements. These barriers resulted in incomplete or inconsistent compliance and showed a need for stronger resources, training, and professional networks.
Access to Justice: A Review of ADA Notice Requirement on State Court Websites
Presented by Heather Evans, PhD and Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, on behalf of the Northwest ADA Center. Dr. Evan’s team research team focused on notice and access to accommodations in Washington State courts. A review of municipal, district, and superior court websites showed that 64% of courts posted no meaningful notice of the right to accommodation. Only 22% listed contact information for ADA inquiries. The result was formal requirements that failed to translate into usable notice and clear pathways for court users.
Accessible Cities 4 All: Where are we?
Presented by Yochai Eisenberg, PhD, Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, on behalf of the Great Lakes ADA Center. Dr. Eisenberg’s presentation considered how cities plan and implement ADA transition plans for pedestrian infrastructure and include people with disabilities on advisory bodies. The research showed that cities are focused on compliance but may not always value the lived experience of disability advocates. They also often lack knowledge about resources that could help them better meet the needs of people with disabilities. Of note, accessibility scores were higher for communities with transition plans compared to those without plans.
The Built Environment, Social Connection, and Ways of Knowing in Disabled Peoples’ Campaigns for Accessibility in Chicago
Presented by Kara Mannor, Rackham Merit Fellow and doctoral candidate in epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. The fourth presentation of the day looked at how the built environment, social connections, and different ways of being known shape how disabled people advocated for accessibility in Chicago. Although disabled advocates used their lived experiences to advance demands about how transit systems can better serve everyone, decision makers often framed their concerns narrowly. This reveals how debates about universality and whose knowledge counts shape outcomes.
Community Needs and Access Research Synthesis
This session convened researchers working on applied policy-relevant projects addressing community needs and access. Presentations highlighted how policy, institutions, and the built environment shape access for people with disabilities and showed persistent gaps between legal rights and practical access, identified recurring barriers, and pointed toward shared strategies for improvement. Below is a synthesis of the session’s presentations followed by key takeaways, policy recommendations, and suggested future research areas.
Across the presentations were several related themes that point to reasons why disability access may be lacking in a variety of environments. One of the common themes was gaps in implementation. Unfortunately, law or policy rarely guarantees practical access for people with disabilities. Notice, planning, and on-the-ground changes often lag behind formal requirements, leaving people with disabilities without full access to the services and programs available to other residents in their communities.
Implementation gaps may be caused, in part, by another common theme—resource constraints. Insufficient resources can be lack of time to focus on ADA compliance due to competing workplace demands or not having enough personnel. Lack of funding can also be a significant constraint. Other deficits include lack of clear guidance or training on how to meet obligations. Although meaningful inclusion of people with disabilities in planning and decision-making improves outcomes, these roles are often under-resourced or sidelined. Each of these resource constraints can be present independently or in combination.
The research provides several implications for policy and practice. For example, investing in capacity, including providing dedicated funding for compliance and needed staff positions, would improve adherence to ADA requirements. Ensuring staff have the time needed to do the work is another important investment toward increased access.
In addition to ensuring proper resources are in place, regulated entities must have mechanisms to provide regular training for coordinators, staff, and decision-makers about ADA requirements and why compliance is important to providing access for people with disabilities. Governments must also have access to peer networks and technical assistance.
Properly trained and resourced compliance efforts must focus on adopting clear, consistent templates and protocols to make rights and procedures easy to find and use. Otherwise, people with disabilities will still be unable to benefit from the rights and protections granted through the ADA. Governments must also seek the expertise of people with disabilities by properly compensating and meaningfully integrating people with disabilities in planning and advisory bodies. Ensuring that their contributions influence decisions and requiring public reporting of measurable goals will help guard against governments’ sidestepping their responsibilities.
The four projects show that rights and policies matter, but they must be paired with resources, transparent communication, authentic participation, and accountable implementation. Research into the best methods for ensuring proper resources for ADA compliance efforts is a crucial part of removing disability-related barriers. Other research should focus on the best mechanisms for fostering input from people with disabilities to ensure that processes and procedures meet their needs. Finally, research into the best practices for creating accountability in meeting ADA requirements, beyond official enforcement actions, is needed to ensure that problems do not rise to that level.