Some in Rochester’s deaf and hard-of-hearing community believe the rollback on DEI by the White House could make it harder for and people in the workforce.

She made a mid-career change, giving up her federal government job in public health to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. She has one year left to finish.

Koplitz spoke to deaf undergraduates at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where she'd gone to college. Several, in a program that is now canceled, talked about plans to go to medical school.

In the laboratory, Sara Blick-Nitko searches for treatments for cancer. But before she could become a scientist, she had to find what deaf people like her call the "Deaf Scientist Pipeline.