Swenor started her academic career at Johns Hopkins University, where she founded the Disability Health Research Center.[4] She is committed to ending inequities impacting people with disabilities, and her work spans a range of areas from inequities in healthcare to transportation to food access. She has said that her research is motivated by her own experiences of living with vision impairment.[5][6] She joined the Wilmer Ophthalmological Institute in 2014 and later joined the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 2022.[7]
She has developed a novel 'disability data justice' approach to research, which uses data to support accountability and equity for disabled people. Examples of this work include a dashboard tracking inequities in the allocation of COVID-19 vaccine for people with disabilities across states and assessing the accessibility of COVID-19 vaccine information and registration webpages at state health departments.[8]
Swenor has argued that scientists with disabilities should have improved access to scientific funding. Although one in four Americans have a disability, only around 10% of employed scientists have one. In an interview, Swenor said, "To reflect the realities of our society, we should have far more people with disabilities working in research and medicine,".[9] She has argued that open-access research can benefit people with disabilities, who struggle to access data and peer-reviewed publications in accessible formats.[10] She believes that data must be accessible and that partnerships with the disability community are key for public health strategies.[11] She co-chaired the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) Working Group on Diversity, Subgroup on Individuals with Disabilities which developed a set of landmark recommendations on how the NIH can improve the inclusion of disabled people in research and the biomedical workforce.[12] In 2022, she was a speaker at the White House Office of Science and Technology and Policy (OSTP) Summit on STEMM Equity and Excellence.[13]
In 2023, Swenor spearheaded a national effort that brought together researchers, disability advocates, and civil rights leaders together and urged the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to designate people with disabilities as a 'health disparity' population.[14] This included peer-reviewed research and a sign-on letter campaign with Dr. Jae Kennedy from Washington State University and former Congressman Tony Coelho, which yielded over 1,500 signatures in less than 48 hours.[15] Less than one month later, the NIH provided this designation on September 26, 2023, which was the 50th anniversary of the Rehabilitation Act.[16]
In 2024, along with colleagues Drs. Scott Landes from Syracuse University and Jean Hall from the University of Kansas, Swenor co-led research and national advocacy opposing the US Census Bureau's proposed changes to disability questions in the American Community Survey (ACS) and calling for a need to engage with the disability community.[17] These efforts led to the submission of over 12,000 public comments opposing this change in response to a related Federal Register Notice. As a result, the US Census Bureau halted the process of changing these questions and pledged to improve efforts to include disabled people.[18]
