Stanford Conference on Disability in Healthcare and Medicine | MSDCI and SMADIE
Stanford Conference on Disability in Healthcare and Medicine | MSDCI and SMADIE
Photo credit: Rick Giudotti
CO-CHAIR, SMADIE
INSTRUCTOR, PEDIATRICS – NEPHROLOGY
Dr. Ken Sutha is a clinician and basic science researcher in pediatric nephrology at Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford who brings his perspective as a two time kidney transplant recipient and previous dialysis patient. He has been a member of the Stanford Medicine Alliance for Disability Inclusion and Equity since 2019 and has served as co-chair since 2021.
Associate Director
The National Center for Dignity in Healthcare and Community Living for People with Disabilities
Leah Smith is the Associate Director of The National Center for Healthcare and Community Living for People with Disabilities.
Doctoral Student in American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Yale University
Athena Sofides is an environmental health researcher, writer, and legal advocate from Brooklyn, New York. Athena earned a Master’s in Environmental Science from the Yale School of the Environment in 2025, and a BA in Environmental Science and Policy from Smith College in 2019. Athena’s work traces the political, ecological, and cultural histories of medicine and chronic illness in the United States, through mixed-methods research on the embodied experience of chronic illness and pharmaceutical production and malfeasance. Athena organizes at the local, state, and federal levels for free and accessible insulin for all, and has written about health and medicine access in Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience; The Baffler; and Forefront: Health Affairs.
Now a first-year doctoral student in Yale’s joint-degree PhD program in American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and a Whitney Humanities Center Fellow in the Environmental Humanities, Athena plans to further explore the histories of production, regulation, embodiment, and public understanding of synthetic hormones in the U.S.
Assistant Professor of Primary Care
Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine
Dr. Hughes has lived with type 1 diabetes since 1995. She is an assistant professor at Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. She is a health psychologist who uses her lived experience of diabetes and disability to conduct health disparities research to improve diabetes care for marginalized communities, including people with diabetes and vision loss. Dr. Hughes provides national leadership through the American Diabetes Association, Society of Behavioral Medicine, American Psychological Association, CMS, and the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists.
