About

Hello, and welcome to my portfolio! I’m Heather Thach, a Ph.D. candidate in Information Science and Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri and a Learning Technology Specialist at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. I also hold a Graduate Certificate in User Experience and Usability and an M.Ed. in Learning, Design, and Technology.

My interdisciplinary research examines the educational experiences of disabled and neurodivergent learners, particularly how accessibility, institutional practices, and emerging technologies such as generative AI shape learning and participation. My work draws on critical disability studies, the neurodiversity paradigm, and information science.

I integrate computational, quantitative, and qualitative research methods to examine what different approaches reveal about educational experiences—and what they may overlook. I am particularly interested in how computational analysis and firsthand accounts can inform more inclusive research practices and trustworthy interpretations.

“The more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into a dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side.”

- Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed