Dr. Bogart is an associate professor of psychology and director of the Disability and Social Interaction Lab at Oregon State University. She is a social/health psychologist specializing in ableism and rare disorders such as facial paralysis. She has received grants from the National Institutes of Health, Good Samaritan Hospital (Erkkila Endowment), and the Moebius Syndrome Foundation. She also serves as consulting editor for the American Psychological Association journal Rehabilitation Psychology. In 2016, Dr. Bogart was named Professor of the Term by the Panhellenic Executive Council of OSU.
Her research focuses on the forgotten “ism” – ableism, or prejudice toward disability. She studies disability from a social psychological perspective, examining others’ attitudes toward disability and the way people with disabilities adapt to their conditions, develop identities, and manage stigma.
Much of her work focuses on the psychosocial implications of living with rare disorders or disabilities, such as Bell’s palsy and Moebius syndrome. In the U.S., rare disorders are defined as affecting fewer than 200,000 people per year. Although there are about 7,000 different rare disorders, the 30 million Americans with rare disorders share similar challenges, including insufficient access to information, support, and treatment. Rare disorders can be stigmatizing because people with them are frequently misunderstood, isolated, and blamed. Her lab is working to build social support and resist stigma in the rare disorder community.
For more information, see her Disability and Social Interaction Lab website.