Featured Faculty
Tiffany Panko
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Dr. Panko is a women’s health scientist who passionately studies reproductive injustice for women like herself, who are deaf and use signed language. She investigates the reproductive health experiences of deaf women to understand how they access information regarding unintended pregnancy options and experience with obtaining health care.
Panko is leading the establishment of the Deaf Health Care and Biomedical Science Hub that will support pathways and pipelines for deaf individuals entering and working in health care and biomedical science careers. She is also an American Association for the Advancement of Science IF/THEN Ambassador, one of 125 women in STEM chosen for their shared goal of empowering girls in middle school to consider science careers. She obtained a She Can Change The World mini-grant to create a women’s health ABC book to be donated to Deaf schools.
Panko directs the Deaf Health Lab (DHL) at the RIT/NTID Research Center on Culture and Language, where she promotes health justice in the deaf community. Her laboratory has led research and initiatives to identify and address gaps in public health by studying the experiences of the deaf community in navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. She found that deaf adults were 4.7 times more likely to report difficulty accessing COVID-19 information and reported 60% lower odds of staying home and calling their doctor over seeking health care immediately and that nearly two-thirds of deaf respondents experienced communication challenges during their telehealth appointments. Panko’s current studies include a national survey to assess the reproductive health care use of deaf women along with semi-structured linguistic interviews that will elucidate how American Sign Language is used in communicating knowledge of and thoughts around reproductive health care and pregnancy termination.
Tiffany Panko
Research Assistant Professor
Liberal Studies
National Technical Institute for the Deaf