“At each step, I have never taken for granted that I would be guaranteed access to the next level of education.”
Hari Srinivasan Psychology Class of 2022
Nor does he shirk his role as a pathbreaker.
“All over the U.S. there are but a handful of autistics with communication challenges like mine in higher education,” Hari notes. “One of the reasons the journey has been so much more difficult for me is that I’ve had to write the roadmap as there are almost no role models to look to for advice.”
As the birthplace of the disability rights movement and the first campus to accommodate students with disabilities, UC Berkeley was the unique fertile ground essential to nurturing Hari’s potential. He acknowledged the flexibility of faculty, staff, and peers in accommodating and working with his needs, as well as the mutual respect and appreciation he experienced, as having the biggest impact. “A key factor for my success was that no one at UC Berkeley ever said “NO.”
Hari pointed to a specific example where his fine motor challenges could have potentially excluded him from contributing to the Berkeley Disability Lab — a makerspace lab requiring hands-on participation. “Professor Karen Nakamura instantly created a brand new role for me that played to my strengths, putting me in charge of team propaganda.”
The social interaction challenges that many autistics such as Hari face exclude them from the informal networks that most non-disabled peers access. Hari credits the Office of Graduate Diversity’s Getting into Graduate School (GiGS) program in helping map the path toward his acceptance into Vanderbilt’s Ph.D. program. “It gave the process a shape, a sort of timeline, all these little tidbits that you would not think of or find online,” he explained. “The best part was undoubtedly the mentorship through weekly meetings with my grad student mentor, Lindsey Burnside.”
Commenting on her work with Hari, Lindsey Burnside, who is a doctoral candidate in the department of psychology and Chancellor’s Fellow, expanded on the value of GiGs. “I feel that every academic has a responsibility to not only bring more marginalized voices into academia, but also to ensure that academia is a space where marginalized people may thrive. It can only improve our knowledge production and service to the public,” she said.
She added, “Though it was a sense of duty that initially drew me to participate in GiGS as a mentor, it has been my absolute privilege to know Hari and be a small support in his journey to graduate school. I am positive he will accomplish wonderful things at Vanderbilt and beyond.”
Hari is an ardent disability advocate. “Today, autism is one of the fastest-growing neurodevelopmental disabilities. Autism in all its forms, has a voice and we want to make it heard,” he emphasized.
He has written over 50 articles on disability as a senior staff journalist at the Daily Cal and was the first minimally-speaking president of the student organization, “Spectrum at Cal” last year. He is on the Council of Autistic Advisors for the Autism Society of America, the Community Advisory Board for the Brain Foundation, and is vice-chair on the Board of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. He was also selected to serve on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, which advises federal policy and priorities on autism. In 2020, his activism was highlighted in social media by Barack Obama.
Hari is very clear about what drives his passion for higher education. “A college degree and above is what gets you a seat at the table, where you get to be part of the conversion about who gets access to spaces, funding, and resources. If we want to see change, belonging, acceptance, and other solutions for autistics, we need to see more autistics in higher ed. And we need to see all profiles of autistics, including the most marginalized autistics, for this change to be meaningful.”
But for Hari, just having a seat at the table is not enough. “I want to be able to redefine the table itself, whether it’s academically or in advocacy. A fair and inclusive world does not just have to be a myth. We need to work actively to make the possibility a reality. Everyone deserves the same opportunity of education, inclusion, and belonging.”