Matthew A. Weed has managed to meet and surpass the successes of many Harvard students. And yet, for this gifted Division of Medical Sciences student, the world is blanketed with darkness.

The first blind and diabetic student to have studied at each Big Three university (Harvard, Yale and Princeton), Weed has taken the Ivy League and the world by storm. Despite his dual disability, he has demonstrated his wisdom in political science and life science.

His scientific aptitude recently earned him a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellowship. Weed will receive approximately $22,000 a year for the next three years to investigate the issue of access to science.

"I would like to explore ways of allowing blind people to be active in the life sciences, a field in which so much information is on text and paper," he says. "Being able to access genetic data, for example, is essential for blind students pursuing biological projects to compete with sighted students."

Since computers supporting text-to-speech synthesis programs have played a key role in Weed's academic successes, he says he may conduct future research on this technology.

"I may look at a dissertation on how the World Wide Web can be applied to make biological data immediately accessible to everyone," he says. "Computers were the necessary tool to get me where I am, and I will unquestionably push them forward."

Although Weed is dedicated to blind-student causes, the implications of his research will also affect sighted individuals, whom he says will also benefit from the immediacy that the Web offers.

However, Weed says he will not limit his future research only to those technological improvements.

"There is so much more to explore in the area of access to science," he says. "For example, there is potential for change in actual laboratories and with techniques like DNA sequencing. The technology is not there yet, but it can be."

Because access to science is so important for Weed, he will leave Harvard with a one year master's degree rather than completing his doctoral program because, he says, Harvard's resources are insufficient for his special needs.

Biography

Born and raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Weed has been legally blind and diabetic for most of his life. When he was six weeks old, medical professionals operated on congenital cataracts in his eyes. The stress and shock of the surgery, Weed says, may have generated his subsequent Juvenile Diabetes, which in turn caused his blindness.

During his childhood, Weed could see enough to get around, but his sight proved to be fleeting.

"As I got older, glaucoma set in and took my vision," he says. "By age 10, my eyes were unresponsive to light on eye examinations."

But he says the blindness and numerous unsuccessful laser surgeries did not dishearten him from learning as much as he could from the world. Mainstreamed into public elementary, junior high and high schools, he proved himself to be an academic success, though he says he still avoids certain subjects, particularly chemistry, to this day.