Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham is an accomplished intellectual. Currently a postdoctoral research associate at Rhode Island's Brown University, Graham formerly taught history at a Virginia high school and is writing a soon-to-be-published biography of Frances Perkins, America's first female cabinet member (as Secretary of Labor) and a notably progressive adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Graham is also autistic. And while her myriad achievements may make it look easy or even glamorous to be autistic, Graham has firsthand familiarity with the ugly downsides to society's prevalent assumptions about autism — assumptions that consistently disadvantage marginalized groups.
