Andrew Begel
Carnegie Mellon University, PA·Education Research
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a fast-growing field with a shortage of skilled workers. Meanwhile, many autistic people have a strong affinity for STEM yet face an 80% unemployment rate because of social stigma and discrimination.
- Fields
Education Research
Computer Science
- Topics
autism
autistic students
neurodiversity
- Grants
- 1 known grant, last ended Sep 2026
What they work on
- Develop teaching materials and scalable tools that teach AI technical skills to autistic community college STEM students through a learning-by-doing approach, delivered partly through online training.
- Teach teamwork and communication skills through AI-focused project-based learning, with special education experts in autism supporting project mentors day to day.
- Design human factors and user interfaces that help AI subject-matter experts, mentors and teachers learn to teach autistic students, and help students secure AI-focused summer internships.
More about the research
Opening AI career pathways to autistic students could address both problems while challenging harmful stereotypes and exclusionary workplace norms.
Why it matters
Autistic adults face very high unemployment despite strong interest in STEM. Training autistic community college students in AI skills, teamwork and communication, and linking them to internships, could open job pathways in AI. Shared online course materials could let other community colleges offer the same training, while helping employers fill AI talent gaps.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Haijun Xia
University of California-San Diego, CA·Computer Science
Analyze diagrams that programmers produce themselves to identify what qualities make graphics effective and directly manipulable for understanding and changing code.
Zhengping Luo
Rider University, NJ·Education Research
Design flexible teaching modules, including labs, tutorials, assignments and research activities, on AI security and privacy in computer vision, speech and audio, and network systems, for integration into undergraduate computing courses.
Carla Brodley
Northeastern University, MA·Education Research
Test whether a placement assessment plus one-credit supplemental courses can reduce credit loss for community college transfer students entering computer science majors, in a pilot at three universities.
The school
Carnegie Mellon University: 28 labs on PI Pages, $505M a year on research, 346 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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