ARRT on The Future of Employment for People with Disabilities - The Burton Blatt Institute (BBI) at Syracuse University, in partnership with Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, Rutgers and Harvard Universities, Mathematica, and national disability organizations including the National Organization on Disability, will train the next generation of highly qualified disability employment researchers. Over the next three years, the goal of the ARRT FEPD is to increase the number of researchers equipped to conduct rigorous, multidisciplinary research that improves employment policy, practice, and outcomes for people with disabilities. The program’s objective is to recruit and train four postdoctoral fellows through a structured, twelve-month interdisciplinary curriculum grounded in active federally funded research programs. Fellows will complete four integrated didactic modules covering disability employment policy and law, research design and scientific methodology, employer practices and workplace experiences including AI and emerging technologies, and knowledge translation and grant development. Training is embedded in ongoing research projects, including the NIDILRR-funded Disability Employment Policy RRTC and the Employer Disability Practices Center RRTC, providing fellows hands-on experience with quasi-experimental causal inference models, randomized controlled trials, qualitative methods, and large-scale secondary data analysis. Anticipated outcomes include at least one peer-reviewed manuscript and one grant proposal per fellow, presentation at national conferences, completion of a community practicum with disability-led organizations, and placement in independent research or tenure-track positions within one year of fellowship completion. Products will include peer-reviewed publications, policy briefs, evidence-based toolkits, plain-language summaries, and conference presentations accessible to policymakers, employers, vocational rehabilitation professionals, and people with disabilities.
