Atomic Hands

Atomic Hands was founded by Dr. Alicia Wooten and Dr. Barbara Spiecker who are themselves scientists and members of the deaf community. Alicia and Barbara met at Rochester Institute of Technology while taking classes together and doing research in the same lab. They bonded over science, traveling, camping, and cats. Both went on to pursue doctoral degrees on the opposite coasts of the United States. As they worked on their Ph.D., they shared some of their experiences and struggles with each other and noticed some similarities. Their similarities included challenges of English-centric learning, lack of networking with deaf STEMists, and frustration of not being able to access science videos in a spoken language. After attending a Deaf Academics Conference together in 2017, they decided they could not sit around anymore and wanted to make a change, and thus Atomic Hands was created.