Disabilities Presents: Spotlight on the IASSIDD 2026 Poster Award Winners

Trinity Centre for Ageing and the Life Course in Intellectual Disability, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin;Stephanie has recently finished her PhD investigating menopause in women with intellectual disabilities. She is particularly interested in understanding the health discrepancies faced by women with intellectual disabilities as they age and how to reduce this gap through inclusive research practices and accessible dissemination.

National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark;Liv Sund Troest is a Master’s student in Public Health at the University of Southern Denmark, with research interests in epidemiology, health inequalities, and intellectual disability. Her current research focuses on comorbidity among cancer patients with and without intellectual disability, using Danish nationwide register data.

School of Nursing and Midwifery and Trinity Centre for Ageing and the Life Course in Intellectual Disability (TCAID), Trinity College Dublin;Dr. Katrina Byrne is an Assistant Professor in Intellectual Disability Nursing at Trinity College Dublin. Her research focuses on oral health and healthy ageing in people with intellectual disabilities, with a particular emphasis on ensuring that people across the full spectrum of intellectual disability are included in health research. Her PhD examined oral health status, oral function and related health outcomes in older adults with intellectual disabilities in Ireland. She has a particular interest in disability-inclusive research methods, accessible health assessment, and translating research findings into meaningful improvements in policy, practice and health promotion.

Dept. of Family Medicine & Community Health, UMass Chan Medical School, Worcester, USA;Dr. Lauer is the Director of the Center for Developmental Disabilities Evaluation and Research (CDDER) at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center and an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. She is also the Director of Shriver’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) and the Associate Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center. Dr. Lauer has dedicated her career to applied research, evaluation and policy efforts to improve the health and well-being of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and other vulnerable populations. Her work focuses on health and risk surveillance and systemic quality improvement for these populations. Dr. Lauer has a PhD in Sociology with a focus on Medical Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston and was the 2022 recipient of the James E. Blackwell Prize in Applied Sociology for her dissertation. She also has a Master’s degree in Public Health focusing in Biostatistics from the UMDNJ/Rutgers School of Public Health and received Stuart D. Cook Public Health Research Award for her fieldwork in factors predicting medication errors in adults with I/DD. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Boston University.