Psychology undergraduate student Megan Sykes works in the Disability and Social Interaction Lab exploring why and when people choose to disclose their disabilities to peers
Megan Sykes
By Taylor Pedersen, CLA Student Writer - July 3, 2025
When Megan Sykes first stepped onto the Oregon State University campus in 2007, she was an Honors College student, thriving academically and looking to enter the criminal justice field after college as a victim advocate, helping to connect victims and survivors of tragedies with resources to guide them through the investigative and court process. She had once envisioned a future on stage, before pivoting to psychology and sociology, and had the grades and determination to make any path her own. Then, everything changed.
“It was Civil War weekend,” she recalled, the annual football clash between OSU and the University of Oregon. “You could feel the energy across campus. It was intense, but I was just trying to get home for my birthday.” What should have been a routine drive to her home in Dallas, Oregon, turned into a life-altering moment when a massive tree branch broke off onto the road. “I had never hydroplaned before,” she said. “The rain was so thick that the windshield wipers didn’t work. I slowed down; that’s probably what saved me. But then… my car hit the tree.”
She walked away from the crash. But within days, neurological symptoms began to surface; memory lapses, cognitive delays, the ability to add numbers suddenly gone. And the support she expected from her university? Nowhere to be found.
“I was in the Honors College. I got kicked out because they didn’t believe I was disabled.”
Sykes’ voice was steady as she recalled the devastation. “My entire sense of identity and worth was wrapped up in my academic achievements. I had always been that student who got 100s, who helped my mom do discounts in her head at the grocery store. And then suddenly, I couldn’t add two plus two without using my fingers.”
She tried to keep up. She asked for accommodations. But OSU faculty and administration at the time dismissed her struggles. “They told me I wasn’t trying hard enough,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying.’ I didn’t understand what was happening to me, and no one believed me.” (The Honors College now works with struggling students to remain in the college.)
Sykes went on medical leave in 2011. She thought it would be temporary. “I never meant to drop out,” she said. “It was supposed to be one term.”
But one term turned into a year. Then many years. Eventually, Sykes had to sign permanent disability discharge paperwork for her student loans. “My doctor looked heartbroken when he told me I would probably never go back to school.”
Yet, even then, her mind itched for stimulation. She read classic novels. She took online courses. She practiced languages on Duolingo. And when that wasn’t enough, she began volunteering, working with local nonprofits and city governments around the Willamette Valley.
It was during this period of community work that something shifted. Her health had stabilized enough for a new idea to take root: Maybe, just maybe, she could finish what she started.
In 2024, 17 years after she first enrolled at OSU, Sykes returned to campus. She reached out to psychology advisor Fabiola Sandoval Morado, who helped guide her through the readmission process. With support from Honors College Associate Dean Susan Rodgers, she was reinstated in the Honors College based on her pre-accident academic performance.
Now, back at OSU, Sykes is thriving in ways she once thought impossible. She works in Dr. Kathleen Bogart’s Disability and Social Interaction Lab, where she is conducting interviews for a research project exploring why and when people choose to disclose their disabilities to peers.
“Megan immediately impressed me with her deep commitment to disability advocacy,” said Bogart. “When I asked her about her research interests, she blew me away with an entire spreadsheet of viable ideas! After a year of conducting interviews for a lab project exploring disability disclosure, she is now developing her own independent thesis project.”
Sykes’ thesis study, which dovetails perfectly with her advocacy for students with disabilities, will survey college students with disabilities to understand how to support their belonging and success, including their interactions with Disability Access Services, faculty, staff, and students, what support they receive, and whether or not they feel like they have place here at OSU.
“It actually started because the Disabled Students Union wanted to do a survey and we turned it into my thesis,” explained Sykes. “I asked Dr. Bogart to help me do a thesis that would be meaningful and impactful. If all goes well, I’m hoping to be able to present it at a conference in 2026.”
She’s also a Library of Congress fellow, the secretary of OSU’s Disabled Students Union, and recently testified before the Oregon Senate Committee on the treatment of disabled students in higher education.
Her advocacy is deeply personal. “There weren’t any disability groups back then. I didn’t even realize I was disabled,” she said. “There was so much grief; I remembered who I used to be. And I couldn’t be her anymore.”
Today, she speaks with clarity and compassion about that earlier version of herself, the one who kept saying “next year” for more than a decade. She’s no longer waiting. She’s building. Sykes is on track to graduate in June 2026 and hopes to attend graduate school. Her focus, both academic and activist, remains centered on disability justice, not just in policy or research, but in the culture of institutions that have long marginalized disabled students.
“Coming back to OSU wasn’t easy,” she admitted. “But now, I get to do work that matters. I get to help create the support I never had.”
For Sykes, the story isn’t just about resilience. It’s about recognition of disability, of systemic failure, and of the right to belong.