My PhD journey began with a simple but persistent question, one that grew directly out of my own experience as a dyslexic learner: why does the architecture of online higher education so often work against the very minds it claims to include?

As a researcher, I'm exploring how neurodivergent learners navigate participation and belonging in digital learning spaces, and I bring to this work both the lens of psychology and neuroscience and the lived reality of a dyslexic brain trying to make sense of systems that weren't built with it in mind.

Dyslexia isn't a deficit in intelligence; it's a difference in how the brain processes language, particularly in the phonological pathways responsible for connecting sounds to symbols. Neuroscience shows us that dyslexic brains often recruit different neural networks to compensate, drawing more heavily on visual-spatial reasoning, pattern recognition, and big-picture thinking.


​In online learning environments, this matters enormously. Text-heavy interfaces, rigid timed assessments, and the absence of multisensory cues can create barriers that have nothing to do with capability and everything to do with design. My research sits at the intersection of these three threads, the psychosocial experience of participation, the practical realities of communities of practice, and the social capital that neurodivergent students either gain or are denied, asking what it would take to build digital education that works with the dyslexic brain rather than against it.