CELEBRATING STEM STORIES

Nat Hawley

Job Title: Neuroinclusion Consultant (Applied Neuroscience) and Founder of Divergent Thinking UK

Disability: Autistic, Dyslexic and Dyspraxic.

Why did you want to work in STEM?

I was always curious, but traditional school didn’t always love the way my brain worked. I learned best when I could see how something worked, test it, and figure out my own system. Over time I became obsessed with a simple question: why do some environments make people thrive, and others quietly drain them? That’s what took me into applied neuroscience and, later, into work that sits between science, people, and real-world systems.

What’s your favourite thing about your job or about working in STEM?

Taking something complex and making it usable. Whether it’s attention, sensory overload, working memory, or stress responses, I love translating the “science bit” into practical tools people can actually use at work or in education. And I love that STEM doesn’t have to look like one narrow career path, it can include the way you build, design, measure, test, troubleshoot, and improve things.

What are your top tips for a young disabled or neurodivergent person interested in STEM as a career?

  1. Don’t let one route define what’s possible. Apprenticeships, T-levels, degrees, entry-level roles, self-teaching, all valid.

  2. Find your learning mode early (audio, visual, doing, teaching it back). Once you know how you learn, you become hard to stop.

  3. Build a “tools list” and use it without shame: captions, text-to-speech, dictation, templates, checklists, these are performance tools.

  4. Find people doing jobs you’ve never heard of yet. STEM is much bigger than the careers schools usually name.

What advantages has your disability given you in the field?

A few, honestly. Dyslexia pushes me toward big-picture thinking and pattern spotting. Autism can give me intense focus when I care about something, and a strong drive to make systems make sense. Dyspraxia means I’ve had to plan, rehearse, and simplify, which is basically what good design is. I don’t think disability is a “superpower” (life can be hard), but I do think difference can create real strengths when the environment doesn’t punish you for needing a different approach.

Useful Links

Divergent Thinking UK: https://www.divergentthinking.uk/

TEDx Talk: Why We Need Neurodiversity: https://youtu.be/Fx2-VHDLJT0?si=IrVn4AFdvBbL_DeU