You and Betty and the Nancy's and Bill's and Joes and Jane's will find in the study of science

a richer, more rewarding life.

Welcome to Inquiring Minds. I'm Indravis Gontas.

This is a podcast that explores the space where science and society collide.

We want to find out what's true, what's left to discover, and why it matters.

There's more than what we see.

Oftentimes, when we think about people with disabilities, we focus on what they can't do, not what they can do.

And yet the human brain and the human body is remarkably adaptable.

We are creative and we find solutions even in the most impossible situations.

So what can we learn from people with disabilities in terms of how they navigate the environment?

What aspects of

the environment do we ignore because we don't have any disabilities? This week we talked to Sarah Hendren,

who's an artist, professor, and a thinker working at the intersection of design and disability.

Her new book is called What Can a Body Do, How We Meet the Built World. And in it, she describes

the many ways in which we can learn from people with disabilities and how we can optimize our

environment to be more inclusive. Sarah Hendren, welcome to inquiring minds. Thank you. So good to be here.

So your book is a very different take on sort of the way that people who are disadvantaged,

how we consider them.

And so I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about what made you want to write about this problem,

this idea that so many of us don't think about how our built environment is suited to our bodies.

Yeah, I mean, it's an old idea in the sense that, you know, in my research area, which is in design and disability, I teach design and disability in an engineering college.

And as a result, I've been reading a lot

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