“Hari is a force of nature. Through his prolific yet consistently brilliant and original, yet highly accessible writing on disability and neurodiversity in Time, Newsweek, Fortune, and Psychology Today. Hari is changing the conversation on autism, disability, and what true inclusion means. He changes the conversation by rightly obliterating how the public thinks about what is possible for people with disabilities. He rightly challenges fundamental concepts including “functioning” labels, “independence,” speaking/nonspeaking, and recontextualizes how we all think about supports and support needs. Through his writing he also humanizes disability and invites everyone into thinking about the experience of disability (e.g., dignity, grief, and loneliness)."

Hari Srinivasan is a PhD Candidate at the Vanderbilt Brain Institute's Neuroscience Graduate Program. He is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow, an AIRP Answers Scholar, a PD Soros Fellow and a NISE Fellow (Neurodiversity Inspired Science and Engineering) at the Frist Center for Autism and Innovation at Vanderbilt. His research focuses on sensorimotor issues in autism, specifically, Peripersonal Space, which is the few inches just outside our skin where multisensory neurons are most active. As an autistic with considerable sensory processing and communication challenges, he hopes his research will not just add to knowledge, but also contribute to translatable solutions such as development of technology that can help in sensory retraining so that autistics are better able to navigate their social and spatial environments. As an undergrad at UC Berkeley, Hari researched the emotions of awe and empathy in autism.