(She/her) 2025
Alexandra Wong is studying for a master’s degree in Applied Digital Health at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Previously, she graduated from Johns Hopkins with a B.A. in Public Health. She is passionate about creating a world where accessibility is universal and having a disability is celebrated through her research and advocacy. Her research included creating computational methods to determine the level of hearing loss in mice and contextualizing hearing healthcare disparities in Baltimore in the late 1900s. She has also contributed to research at Hopkins surrounding noise-induced hearing loss, the inequitable digital public health response to COVID-19, and accessibility of U.S. hospital websites.
When she’s not in the lab, she can be found sharing her story of growing up with hearing loss on the TEDx stage, with podcasts, and on industry panels to encourage acceptance of those with disabilities. In the community, she is the founder of the NextGen Accessibility Initiative where she partners with Gen Z organizations to make their digital content fully accessible for disabled youth. Her work to improve digital accessibility within the NextGen Accessibility Initiative has reached over 200,000 youth in 119 countries. Zandy also advised the U.S. Department of Labor and state policymakers on creating policies to help disabled youth transition into higher education and workplace environments.
She recently drafted federal policy mandating the accessibility of federal social media accounts. She also serves an advisor to UNICEF and UNESCO as part of the LearningPlanet Fellow Team and Generation Unlimited Young People’s Action Team. She was named a Top 50 Global Finalist for the Varkey Foundation’s 2023 Global Student Prize in recognition of her disability advocacy and research. She has also been interviewed by the Guardian, the Washington Post, and Teen Vogue about her disability advocacy and research. She is excited to join the DLN because she cannot wait to learn from disabled students in the UK and build community with them.