Redefining Autism Diagnosis: A Policy Framework for Autistic Girls/Women

The Feminine Intelligence Agency (FIA) has already sponsored research into how autism criteria are defined and how they fail to capture the lived experience of autistic girls and women—particularly how this leads to missed diagnoses and increased vulnerability to coercion and sexual assault. Building on this existing research, this project will: Map the Decision-Making Process : Identify the key players and committees (e.g., APA, DSM subcommittees, insurance lobbies) who shape diagnostic criteria and public messaging. Analyze Diagnostic Gaps and Biases : Show how the current DSM framework ignores autistic girls’ masking, trauma history, and vulnerability, and how it perpetuates a deficit model instead of a neurodivergent perspective. Conduct Interviews : Engage with key informants—such as clinicians, researchers, advocacy groups, and autistic women—to capture a 360-degree view of how these decisions are made and how they impact real lives. Transcribe and synthesize these interviews to inform the final report. Investigate Health Department Leverage Points : Explore how initiatives like the US Autism Registry could reinforce outdated deficit models or support a divergence-based approach. Propose Systemic Policy Changes : Develop actionable recommendations to shift from the deficit model to a neurodivergent framework, ensuring early interventions include social discernment skills that protect autistic girls from coercion.

Bridging Research to Healthcare: Coercive Control Awareness Poster

The project aims to address the often-overlooked issue of coercive control in healthcare settings. Coercive control is a subtle yet damaging form of psychological and social abuse that significantly impacts health and well-being. Despite its seriousness, it is frequently absent from clinical conversations. The Feminine Intelligence Agency (FIA) has compiled extensive research on this topic, including survivor-informed language and best practices for support. The goal of this project is to translate this rich research base into an educational poster that can be displayed in healthcare environments. This poster will serve as a tool for both doctors and patients to recognize and understand the implications of coercive control. By doing so, the project seeks to enhance awareness and improve the quality of care provided to those affected by this form of abuse.

Listening Lab Expansion Strategy

The Listening Lab is a scalable, community-driven wellness initiative designed to provide nervous system regulation and emotional support through structured peer pods. It serves individuals experiencing intense emotions who may not want or be able to access therapy. The program avoids peer therapy pitfalls by assigning rotating coaching and creative roles instead of advice-giving, fostering empowerment, expression, and emotional resilience. FIA has already developed the core theory, initial simulation, and a draft design. We are seeking graduate students in public health to help advance this into a pilot-ready model by selecting focus areas aligned with their interests and competencies. Project Options for Students (Choose 1–2): 1. Program Design & Health Promotion Strategy Translate Listening Lab’s theory into a detailed health promotion program. Design participant-facing materials (e.g., facilitation guides, safety disclaimers, onboarding forms). Identify public health frameworks (e.g., trauma-informed care, social support theory) to structure the intervention. Deliverable: A full intervention logic model or promotional campaign plan. 2. Technology Feasibility & Peer Role Design Recommend digital tools to facilitate remote peer pods (e.g., Zoom, Discord, Circle). Help shape peer roles that promote participation and emotional safety. Design protocols to ensure participants don't engage in untrained therapy behaviors. Deliverable: A set of peer pod role cards and a technology comparison chart. 3. Evidence-Based Evaluation Strategy Conduct a literature review on community-based emotional regulation programs. Design an evaluation plan to measure safety, satisfaction, and potential health outcomes. Recommend pre/post metrics or participant surveys for low-barrier data collection. Deliverable: A 2-page evaluation plan + annotated bibliography. 4. Community Outreach & Equity Plan Identify target populations for the pilot (e.g., college students, single mothers, neurodivergent adults). Develop an inclusive outreach and recruitment plan, considering stigma and access barriers. Suggest community partners or local organizations for pilot testing. Deliverable: A strategic outreach brief and equity checklist.

Empowerment Dashboard Design with Synthetic Data

The Feminine Intelligence Agency (FIA) is a social innovation startup that builds tools to help women and other vulnerable populations recognize coercion, build psychological resilience, and protect themselves in relationships, workplaces, and digital environments. We’ve developed a suite of educational tools based on years of psychological research, including: The Agency Calculator – A diagnostic tool that scores users on 20 dimensions of personal agency (e.g., boundaries, emotional regulation, critical thinking, autonomy). The BlindSpot Quiz – A self-awareness tool that reveals a user's potential manipulation blind spots or psychological vulnerabilities. The Player Identifier Chatbot – An AI-guided conversation tool that scores patterns in past or present relationships to detect early warning signs of coercive control. All tools are grounded in a custom-built trait scoring system, and the backend is currently being migrated to a graph database (Neo4j) to support interactive analysis and visualization. The Goal of This Project: Your job is to take our structured psychological framework and design a user-facing data dashboard using synthetic data . This dashboard should help users: Understand their strengths and areas for growth across the 20 agency traits See how their relationship history or quiz patterns affect their risk profile Get personalized suggestions for chatbot training modules or education content Track their learning journey or improvement over time This dashboard should be visually intuitive , empowering , and curious-user-friendly . Think of it as the bridge between psychological insight and actionable growth. Data Provided: You’ll be given structured synthetic datasets that mirror real patterns from FIA’s tools (no real user data, no PII). These datasets will include: Trait scores from the Agency Calculator (0–10 scale, 20 traits) Vulnerability cluster types from the BlindSpot Quiz Player-type pattern flags from relationship assessments Sample chatbot session logs (e.g., user selected “Egocentric Evan,” answered 6/10 confrontation questions) Suggested learning modules and growth paths (Optional) simulated session timestamps for visualizing progress over time