For years, scientists Joey Ramp has been advocating to make lab spaces more accessible to disabled

scientists and their service animals. We first talked to Joey on shortwave last year,

and since then she's published in multiple scientific journals, helped develop lab safety

guidelines to include service animals, and is now working full-time with her firm

Empower Ability Consulting. Today, we return to that initial conversation with Joey

and her very good boy, Samson the Service Dog. Enjoy. You're listening to shortwave

from NPR. So if you're a scientist, say a biologist or a chemist and you have to work in a lab,

you're super familiar with the term PPE. Personal protective equipment, which is PPE,

is outer garments, goggles, boots, and gloves. That's Joey Ramp. She works at the Beckman Institute

for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. And yeah,

basically anybody who sets foot in a lab needs some form of PPE. Sam, here. Even if you have

four feet. See, Joey has a service dog. Can you hear him? I can't hear a little like grunt. Samson.

Okay, he was getting up. All right, here we go. Oh, there he is. Samson, a golden retriever,

is trained not to bark. And he's a very good boy. When he's in the lab with Joey, he wears goggles.

Warned by military canine and by police canine and law enforcement. He wears rubber bottom boots on

each paw. And he also wears a lab coat underneath his harness. And that keeps him safe.

Samson, in turn, keeps Joey safe in the lab and out. Years ago, Joey suffered a traumatic brain injury.

She also has PTSD. Samson senses when she's in a stressful situation that could trigger her PTSD.

He picks things up because she can't bend over that well. And he helps her balance and brace when

she's moving around. It's a cliche to say that the dog saved my life. But a service dog really

does that every single day. But there was a time when Joey was told that she couldn't have her

dog with her. At least not if she also wanted to be in the lab. They immediately said, oh my gosh,

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