Laura Mauldin

Laura Mauldin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Critical Inquiry at the University of Connecticut. Laura grew up in Texas and attended a school district that served deaf students from across the region. As a result, she became friends with deaf students in her school and learned American Sign Language. She later received an MA in Deaf Studies from Gallaudet University. Upon finishing that, she entered a doctoral program in sociology at the Graduate Center—City University of New York, All the while, she worked as a nationally certified interpreter. As she studied the politics of health and illness, how people move through and experience the health care systems in the US, and the cultural meanings of disability in US in school, she maintained a staff position as an interpreter in one of NYC’s largest public hospitals for over a decade. She has spent countless hours both studying people’s experiences of disability and illness, while also addressing deaf patients’ issues across every single department in a major public hospital.

With fifteen years of experience as an academic, Laura has published widely across the social sciences and humanities from medical sociology to disability studies to science and technology studies, and even gerontology. She also loves people and brings her infectious energy and passion for her research topics to teaching and speaking, winning her university’s teaching award in 2019. And she is not just an academic. She has turned to creative nonfiction and journalistic outlets to expand her audience and share big ideas with people, winning a New America Fellowship in 2024 to support the work. This culminated in her 2026 book, In Sickness and In Health: Love Stories from the Frontlines of America’s Caregiving Crisis, This book blends memoir, reportage, and cultural criticism to transform our understanding of the care crisis. As a caregiver for five years to her late partner, Laura found herself living the things she was studying and felt passionately that she needed to share the things she learned with the world. Her other essays and pieces on disability and care can be found here. She also created and maintains the site Disability at Home, which is a public resource of home hacks from disabled people and caregivers on making home more accessible.

TOPICS: Health, Disabiltiites, Science, Technology