Aparna Raghu Menon

(she/her)

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Aparna is a PhD Candidate in Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto. Her SSHRC-funded doctoral research, grounded in Critical Disability Studies, explores autistic non-verbal communication among children and youth, drawing on communication studies, posthumanism, and feminist frameworks. Aparna's research also includes projects on disability and food security, food and autism, and ethnocultural food supply chains. She is a parent counsellor, a tutor for autistic adolescents, and, last but certainly not least, a parent to an 8-year-old son with multiple disabilities. She is currently conducting her doctoral fieldwork among children and youth labelled autistic and non-verbal in Mississauga and Mumbai.

Experience

  • –present
    PhD Candidate, University of Toronto
  • 2026–present
    Course Instructor, University of Toronto

Education

  • 2022 
    University of Toronto , MA English
  • 2018 
    University of London, BA Hons (English)

Publications

  • 2026
    Qualitative Inquiry, Doing More Than Human Research: Developing Qualitative Research Methods for a Multispecies World
  • 2026
    SSHO, Unboxing Disability Communication: Exploring the methodological contours of critical disability research in public health archives
  • 2025
    The Disability Matters Scholarship Collection. Sheffield: University of Sheffield, The Imaginaries of the Picture Exchange Communication System

Grants and Contracts

  • 2023
    SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship
    Role:
    Funding Source:
    Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
  • 2023
    Burstow Award for Activism from the Margins
    Role:
    Funding Source:
    University of Toronto

Professional Memberships

  • Canadian Sociological Association
  • Canadian Disability Studies Association

Contact Aparna for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision