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Aimee Grant investigates the needs of autistic people

Her research focuses on reproductive health care

Aimee Grant is sitting on a wheelchair against a white wall. She has a short, purple hair and wearing glasses, a necklace and a black short-sleeve dress with white flower pattern. She also has tattoos on her right arm.

Public health researcher Aimee Grant considers autism a cognitive difference, rather than a deficit.

Matthew Arthur

By Saima S. Iqbal

Before becoming a researcher, Aimee Grant worked as a caregiver for six years in Cornwall, England, supporting autistic adults in group homes. But only more than a decade later, after befriending an autistic colleague at a sociology conference, did she realize she was autistic herself.

The stereotypical view of autism as a brain impairment more commonly found in men made it difficult for Grant to make sense of her internal world.