Rose Ewald
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5629-7419
I am a PhD student in Program Evaluation in the Educational Research Methodology department at the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). I hold a B.S. in Nutrition Science with a minor in
Biology from UNCG. Many of my earlier research papers were done as a way of exploring more deeply
the myriad ways that physiological processes affect health. I also obtained an MPH in Public Health
Education from UNCG, during which I broadened my research efforts to include environmental and
social factors that affect health behaviors and health outcomes. I use both quantitative and qualitative
methodologies. As a public health educator and certified health education specialist, I distinguish
disability from chronic illness, construe ableism as a systemic social determinant of health (SDOH), and
identify ableism and disability as being causal in nature, often leading to health disparities and chronic
illness later in life. I consider education to be a fundamental SDOH with particular consequences for
people with disabilities. My current research interests focus on higher educational institutions,
including how the intersectionality of the built environment, social-ecological factors, and campus
culture impact students with disabilities, how researchers approach their studies about students with
disabilities, and how culturally responsive research methodologies can be expanded to better
understand the needs of students with disabilities at a systemic and institutional level. My goals are to bring these distinctions into higher education curricula, teaching, research,
and practice, to end the stigma of disability on college campuses, and to increase cultural competence
about ableism and disability among policy makers, administrators, faculty, staff, and students in higher
education. To this end, in 2020 I started UNCG’s Zeta Phi chapter of the Delta Alpha Pi International
Honor Society, which celebrates and supports academic achievement, leadership, and advocacy by and
for college and university students with disabilities.