The #KSP Universe — Collision of Ideas. Courage of Conviction. Scholarship That Does Not Ask Permission.
Dr. KSP is building something. The Access Lab is the research hub. #TeamKSP is the advising model. The work is grounded in disability, race, and higher education — and it does not wait for permission to ask the questions the field has been too slow to ask.
Assistant Professor of Higher Education · Teachers College · Ball State University
Dr. Kat J. Stephens-Peace is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Ball State University and a neurodivergent scholar whose research grows directly from her own experience navigating academia. Her work centers disability — particularly ADHD at the nexus of race and gender — across graduate education, faculty life, and Caribbean higher education institutions, using qualitative, arts-based, and indigenous methodologies from the Global South to tell the stories that traditional research methods often miss. She is the founder of The Access Lab and a mentor to doctoral students who are building research identities of their own.
The Access Lab is a qualitative and arts-based research laboratory housed within Educational Leadership at Ball State University. Founded by Dr. Kat Stephens-Peace, the lab produces scholarship at the intersection of disability studies, Black feminist thought, Caribbean methodologies, and creative inquiry — with a particular focus on neurodivergence, higher education access, and the experiences of those the field has studied least.
The Access Lab is not neutral. It is built on the premise that belonging and access in higher education is a research question with an answer — and that answer demands rigorous, humanizing, and methodologically expansive scholarship to find it.
Faculty Life and Neurodivergence in Higher Education
How does the tenure clock measure time the body cannot keep? A study of neurodivergent faculty navigating institutional rhythms not built for them.
What does disability community look like inside institutions already shaped by a Black majority? This study asks disability staff at HBCUs & Caribbean Tertiary Institutions directly.
Doctoral students whose research interests sit alongside the lab's. Same shape across each profile — individuality lives in the content.
Ed.D. Student
Educational Leadership · Ball State University
Research Assistant
Ed.D. Student · Rising Second Year
Ball State University
Research Assistant & #TeamKSP
Doctoral student
The Access Lab
A team member is finalizing their profile. Check back soon.
Doctoral student
The Access Lab
A team member is finalizing their profile. Check back soon.
Doctoral student
The Access Lab
A team member is finalizing their profile. Check back soon.
Doctoral student
The Access Lab
A team member is finalizing their profile. Check back soon.
Reach out via the contact form, or learn more about #TeamKSP and what it means to build your scholarly identity inside the #KSP Universe.