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The RIOS (for a Racially-just Inclusive Open STEM Education) Institute presents an interview podcast where Dr. Bryan Dewsbury of the Science Education And Society (SEAS) lab converses with individuals who do social justice work in science education and education in general. We hope people enjoy the conversation itself, and consider new ways in which education can be transformative whatever your situation may be.
Knowledge Unbound, welcome back. Segev, I have another full circle moment. I feel like a lot of well, I was gonna say a lot of my episodes are, but that's not maybe fully true. I would say that I've had a few special opportunities for that to happen.
Bryan Dewsbury:You know, I'm a professor. I've been one for twelve years, I've taught a lot of students over that time. And hopefully, I did good by all of them. But of course, at some point, you know, you're twelve years in, so those students I taught a decade ago are now in grad school doctors, they have families now. And you don't, you're not going to realistically be able to keep in touch with all four, five, 6,000 of them.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? But when you get a chance to kinda reconnect with them in in in their later years, it it could be a truly special thing. And that that to me is how I would describe today's conversation.
Segev Amasay:I mean, when does it not come full circle for you at this point?
Bryan Dewsbury:I mean, I I I hear you. Right? And and maybe what you're telling me is that, like, my style and and a big element of this podcast is is asking guests to reflect on the earlier parts of their circle in service of what they're doing now. So you're right in that. Right?
Bryan Dewsbury:But this now, when I'm looking at I'm talking to Ariamela Berti, today's guest. I'm also looking a little bit at Brian of ten years ago, right? And there's just sort of something to that. So today, we're going to talk to Ariamia Loberti. Lots to describe her as former student of mine at the University of Rhode Island where I I used to be.
Bryan Dewsbury:Her last project was as a as the lead actress in All the Light We Cannot See, a short film, a short series that you can still catch on Netflix. A wonderful book which I had read long before the series came out. She will tell us a story of how she ended up doing that. But just everything before that, right, her triple major, her time in grad school, It was a wonderful, wonderful time. So I hope you enjoy it.
Bryan Dewsbury:Welcome to Knowledge Unbound. All my guests are special for different reasons. Don't look at me like that. Like I mean special in a good way. Like you already given me the side eye, But you know, for those of you who've been listeners and who understand my work, you get that the thing I'm interested in, in education is human formation.
Bryan Dewsbury:That classes are a beautiful space to learn and be technically brilliant, but what keeps me interested and invested in this work is watching people kind of figure themselves out. That can mean a lot of things. Right? I don't do this to be deterministic to prescribe to people what they should become. Right?
Bryan Dewsbury:But, but I do ask them to stay curious and stay open, stay open to different things. Right. And several years ago, I had the pleasure of teaching a young lady who at the time was, was legally blind in an intro bio honors class. That young lady then I asked her to be my learning assistant the following year, which she graciously accepted and her guide dog Ingrid. Then we we stayed in contact, but I I want her to tell you her path after that.
Bryan Dewsbury:I don't think it's for me to tell her story and it's as you know, this is not my stat. Right? So so Aria, welcome to Knowledge Unbound. Hi. It's
Aria Mia Loberti:good to be here.
Bryan Dewsbury:It's it's great it's great to see you again. Yeah. So I don't know. Where where should we start? Tell us talk to us from talk to us from quadruple major or triple major.
Aria Mia Loberti:Triple major. I tried to do quadruple and I couldn't pull it off, but it's okay. Would have had
Bryan Dewsbury:to say that were semester. Under oh, Jesus. Yeah. The horror. Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:So so talk to us from triple major. Yeah. What you were hoping to do with that? Mhmm. And take us to where you are now.
Aria Mia Loberti:Well, I think I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I was very interested in just sort of how things worked. So obviously when I came into URI, which is where we met was like my very very first semester, I was just interested in learning how the world worked. And so I thought fundamentally that was going to mean biology. Like being a biology major, I thought, okay, I'm really good at my high school STEM classes. Maybe this is pre med, but I also really liked doing advocacy and I really liked doing those types of classes that were more politically focused and more human rights focused.
Aria Mia Loberti:I was like well maybe I'm doing something where STEM and human rights are bridged. Maybe this is like a law degree and not a medical degree. And I didn't really know what I was doing, but I knew the things that like I wanted to crack and the questions that I wanted to ask. And I guess I wasn't really prepared for the answers to the questions that I got.
Bryan Dewsbury:So so was it triple major part of your search?
Aria Mia Loberti:No. So I came in declared biology.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. I Did I spoil that for you?
Aria Mia Loberti:No. No. I think a lot of things did. It was mostly because I well I came in with the biology BA because there was an option to do the BA
Bryan Dewsbury:and the
Aria Mia Loberti:BS. I was like, I'll do the BA because I had more freedom. And I think the more I looked at my years, what my junior year and senior year would have looked like, the more I was like, well, these aren't the classes that are answering the questions that I'm asking. Mhmm. So what do I do with this information?
Aria Mia Loberti:Like, because it's not, it wasn't, like, satisfying enough for me to be, like, getting good grades. It's something. Although your class was the I think the lowest grade I ever got.
Bryan Dewsbury:Which I think was a b. Right?
Aria Mia Loberti:An a minus.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. Alright. Sorry.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. It was an a minus. Okay? I got one eighty nine in his class. I'm just saying.
Aria Mia Loberti:And that was the lowest grade I've gotten in
Bryan Dewsbury:my entire career. I don't make the averages. I just plug in the numbers and what comes out comes
Aria Mia Loberti:out. Exam number three, I got an 89. And everything else I was like in the nineties and it came to an A minus and that was fine. Whatever. But like no, that wasn't the reason why.
Aria Mia Loberti:It was just I I just was looking at these, especially the upper level classes and like what why isn't this hitting? And so I started to look at other things to do alongside it.
Bryan Dewsbury:Be before you continue. Because you said something I'm not sure if you actually told us. Oh. To, you know, finish your thought.
Aria Mia Loberti:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Probably
Bryan Dewsbury:not. You said you weren't you weren't getting answers to the questions that you were asking. Yes. What questions were you asking?
Aria Mia Loberti:I think I wanted to just understand how people in the world worked, and I wanted to understand what I could do going into like a career or professional space to make things better. And I didn't know whether that going to be lab science, working in a medical atmosphere, working in a legal atmosphere, working as a politician. Like I had no idea what that would lead me to but I that that's kind of what I wanted to do. I just didn't know how. Yeah.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I didn't have the minutiae. I had the big picture but not the minutiae worked out.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:And as I was like planning my class schedule with biology, I found that those classes weren't necessarily where I was looking to go.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And that maybe I was supposed to be a humanities or social sciences person. And what was interesting about your class is that your class was both biology setting you up for the major, weather and all that. But it was also in very many ways a social science perspective on biology. And then when I started to look at other classes I realized that that wasn't sort of what they were all going to be like. And that was really, really interesting to me.
Aria Mia Loberti:Because this thing that I came in declared and was pretty certain I would follow through for four years was the major that I ended up losing. Yeah. And then I ended up in various ways being like, okay, it's gonna be poli sci communication and philosophy. Yeah. And it was just sort of a bunch of things led me to that combination of of majors and
Bryan Dewsbury:You know, it's it's it's I selfishly say it is satisfying to hear you, you know, publicly articulate, right, that that that the class the way I approach your class had a very social science feel to it.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Because I do that deliberately, right? I mean, I think the students still learn a lot of biology and do it well, but I I want them to get that bigger context, And sometimes I don't always know if that lands, right? Like, I don't always know if an 18 year old first year student is is seeing what I'm trying to do with the way I infuse the stories and the the problem solving. But but I wanna go back to Yeah. To to this notion of asking questions that you're trying to get answered because you're you're speaking of it almost a little casually but but it to me at at that age, right, the age you were then.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm. It would have had to been well, okay. Maybe let me ask it this way. Was it a little scary to to have this sort of I don't know what I'm gonna do specifically, but I just know I want these questions answered. And the reason why I'm asking is because Mhmm.
Bryan Dewsbury:There are a lot of undergrads who listen to this podcast. And and most undergrads that I teach come in with a very, very clear sense of, I'm going to med school. I'm going to grad school. Right? And I and I get why.
Bryan Dewsbury:Like, there's there's safety and certainty. Right? If you know you're gonna do x, then you and you were told in 19 things you have to do to get to x, and you just buckle down and do it. But what is what feels more vulnerable is to say, look. I I have things I'm interested in.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm. I have ways in which I wanna be in the world. And I I you know, whatever that looks like from an occupation standpoint, we'll see. Mhmm. But I'm not gonna fret about that specifics yet.
Bryan Dewsbury:I just wanna get my questions answered. What was that journey like for you though?
Aria Mia Loberti:I think it was kind of there were days where I was like, oh, this is the most free and open and like amazing I've ever felt in my whole life. Like, this is where I'm supposed to be and this is amazing. But then they were always balanced by days where I was like, I can't afford to think like this. I literally didn't have money. So I was like, I can't afford to leave URI and be stuck in a job that pays 30 ks because I decided to do a philosophy major or something like that.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I'm like, I think that's such a weird place for students to be in because at the end of the day it's how you process information and the way that your brain works that's going to make you like that will allow you to find the path that you're supposed to be on and make that path make sense for you. But we're sort of telling a lot of our young people now to go in and you just need to get paid. So don't bother asking questions or thinking about what you can do for the world. You just need a paying job. Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I so that was always something that I was dealing with. And I think part of my thing was always like it's going to it always worked itself out. This is going it's going to work itself out. You're going to figure it out. And by the time the three years had passed and I was in my junior year I was very much sort of like, Oh I'm going to be a professor.
Aria Mia Loberti:Because I looked at all of my professors and I was like, They're asking the questions that I want answered. Right. And I can see the impact.
Bryan Dewsbury:There's literally no joke.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. I'm like and they are also like having an impact on other people's lives and that was something I also really wanted to do. Because I was like there were so many people who didn't stand up for me and who let me down and I come from I don't want to get into this because it's like too much. But like I come from a background with a lot of abuse and trauma and like the only people holding me up through that whole thing were my parents. But the rest of my childhood, like basically leading up to me going to college was not a good place.
Aria Mia Loberti:So all of a sudden I'm in college and here are these people who are like, Yeah, you're awesome. You can do this. You can ask the questions. It's going to be amazing. And like yeah, you got to this point.
Aria Mia Loberti:It's always worked out. It's going to work out even better. You have these tools. You can succeed. Do you want to go to grad school?
Aria Mia Loberti:And I think also when I started asking these questions about what does it mean to be a professor? What kind of research can I do? What does it look like to be a professor in a wet lab versus a professor in a social sciences lab versus somebody writing ancient philosophy papers? Everyone was so excited that somebody was interested. And so of course I left URI and I went into my grad school education like I'm gonna do this because these people did what I wanted to do in my life sort of.
Aria Mia Loberti:Like I wanted to do what they did for me for the rest of the planet basically. Yeah. And so that was interesting because then I got to grad school and that is not what you do in grad school and that was existentially disturbing
Bryan Dewsbury:for me. I think maybe maybe we should have prepared you for grad school
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:A bit different. You know? Yeah. Well, yes. And I apologize for that.
Bryan Dewsbury:But, you know, grad school was interesting. Right? Because I I was a little similar to you. Well, maybe not similar in the sense I had just questions I wanted to answer that. I just I had an interest I wanted to follow.
Bryan Dewsbury:And it was my undergraduate mentor who steered me to grad school. I'm grateful Yeah. To him for that. But but I I definitely had to, like, at some point, make my own grad school experience, if that makes sense. Right?
Bryan Dewsbury:Because even even at the graduate level, there was still obvious attempt to kind of buckle you into one particular way of thinking. And and and that, you know, that sort of freedom to ask your own questions
Aria Mia Loberti:Mhmm.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right, wasn't as much there as I thought it would be.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I think the sort of expectation I had going into it and a lot of people were like, grad school is gonna be different than undergrad because you're not studying a bunch of things. You're studying one thing. And that's true. But I was ready for that part. And what I wasn't ready for was you're going to get there.
Aria Mia Loberti:Now you have these traditions that were set up by people who don't know what it's like to live in the real world.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:And you have to conform.
Bryan Dewsbury:What? Academia doesn't know what it's like to do? No.
Aria Mia Loberti:And like you have to conform Right. Completely. And I was like, I felt like all the people that I knew who had gone to grad school, so basically all my professors, were like these interesting people who were so creative and cool. And I was like, there's no way any of them survived this because I was seeing them like years out of grad school.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:They're making their own path and I yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:By the time you met them, they were almost fully formed. Yeah. They had to kind of get past the
Aria Mia Loberti:new Yeah. So that was And I sort of had a rude awakening because that was all during COVID too. I had a lot of time to, like, stew in my own thoughts. Mhmm. And that was I don't know.
Aria Mia Loberti:I think honest to god, if, like, certain things didn't happen, I'm sure we'll get to. Like, I would have kept going because I loved what I was learning so And I think the only thing that would have actually held me back was the fact that I couldn't do more. I had to pigeon hole myself into what I was like, Oh ancient history and ancient philosophy and how language has worked through time and how language creates our society. These were all the things that my diss was focusing on. I loved that topic enough and that topic felt so freeing and, like, uncharted enough that I think I would have found a way through the obstacles, but Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:My mental health was
Bryan Dewsbury:Would have taken a while.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. It was very bad by the time my career change happened. Let's Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Let's go back to URI for a second because I know when you were here, and just in case we didn't make this explicit enough
Aria Mia Loberti:Yes.
Bryan Dewsbury:Ingrid Oh, yeah. Had a guide dog. Sorry. Well Aria had a guide dog. Wow.
Bryan Dewsbury:Did I just do that wrong? Aria had a guide dog named Ingrid.
Aria Mia Loberti:And named Ingrid.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. And Ingrid Ingrid is now 10 years old.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. She looks exactly the same she's little gray.
Bryan Dewsbury:I know. Know. I just I just remet her and Yeah. And did did she remember me?
Aria Mia Loberti:Mean I think she remembered you.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Aria Mia Loberti:I remember was not, oh, I see a person who wants to pet me.
Bryan Dewsbury:That was
Aria Mia Loberti:like, oh my god. I'm reunited.
Bryan Dewsbury:I wish I wish I had it on film because
Aria Mia Loberti:I know. I wish my mom teamed it. My mom also came.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. So Ingrid took my class with a guide dog. Aria. Aria. It's oh, Jesus Christ.
Bryan Dewsbury:I keep saying Ingrid.
Aria Mia Loberti:Ingrid came with
Bryan Dewsbury:me. Took my class with a guide dog named Ingrid. Yeah. We had a great time.
Aria Mia Loberti:It was so good.
Bryan Dewsbury:Everyone And then when Aria graciously said yes to be my LA Yeah. We did we filmed a video, which I'll share in the website. Do you remember that video we filmed to send them as a this is how you
Aria Mia Loberti:Talk to.
Bryan Dewsbury:You know, talk to a guide dog
Aria Mia Loberti:and and
Bryan Dewsbury:and then you would also what I didn't know prior to meeting you was that once the harness is off, the guide dog becomes a dog dog. Yeah. And so you would I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:You would graciously let Ingrid be like a therapy dog before Yes. Yeah. But I know because it was your lived experience.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:You did a lot of work at URI on accessibility. Yeah. So talk to us a little bit about because I know and I think I'm correcting this that your experience here was a lot better than it was prior to coming here. Tell us a little bit about what your experience was like navigating undergrad legally blind and some of the stuff, the conversations you had around improving accessibility.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah, I think well, it was so interesting because when I decided to come to URI, I like wanted to have those conversations right away because I was so prepared for not having anything taken care of and I was so prepared for like, oh you're gonna have to fight for yourself and like, So basically my childhood there were actual legal battles with people who didn't accommodate my learning in school. And so I had to fight from when I was four years old to get educated. Basically very very long story simplified and short. They didn't want to educate me and that obviously is illegal in this country. So I was like, you know, I'm like I'm gonna fight for this and I fought from when I was really little and my parents sort of taught me how to fight.
Aria Mia Loberti:So we were sort of all in it together and I also realized through that like that there were a lot of kids who were in the same exact position that I was in and they didn't have the parents to go do it. So we didn't have the money or the resources but we had the three of us together and like figuring things out and we had the time to figure it out and I had parents who were willing to figure it out and who like actually believed in their kid. And I know that not everybody has that and not everybody had like that belief in them. For some people it's going to be a family member, a parent, a teacher, whatever. Just realized what an epidemic that was in our country but also around the world and how many kids were fighting to get educated in some way, shape, or form.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I was like, oh, I'm gonna do something about this.
Bryan Dewsbury:So you had a notion of paying it forward from the moment you got here.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. And so I was always kinda like, from, like, when I was little, I'm like, I was, like, in local politics, like, trying to make policies different because I knew that kids were getting taken advantage of or funding was getting cut and then they couldn't learn the right way or they didn't have the access to the schools that they needed. So when I came to RI I was very prepared for like this could be really bad. Like you might have a bunch of people telling you, you don't belong here. And like there were definitely days where I had issues or like roadblocks but like I certainly didn't have any issue with getting my education.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:Because everybody like not only understood the law but they were just like decent people. Mhmm. And they were just like, here's a smart kid. And like it doesn't even matter if you're smart. Like you like a kid who wants to learn basically.
Aria Mia Loberti:Right. And like everyone did what they had to do to make that happen. Mhmm. And so I was looking for ways that I think one of the big things with URI was that I noticed that I was like the only person I knew in a lot of my classes who had a visible access barrier or like a mobility aid or those types of things. It really disappointed me that like twenty percent of our population has some sort of disability that would present an access barrier.
Aria Mia Loberti:Basically that was not what campus reflected to me at all. I really wanted to make sure that people knew that this was a place that they could come and that they could succeed because I think so many kids with any type of disability or like any type of barrier basically like this college isn't this college experience Right.
Bryan Dewsbury:Just assume that it's not
Aria Mia Loberti:gonna Yeah. Like this is for like quote normal people and like there was always that phrase in my brain when I was applying to college was like this might not be for me. People are gonna want to shut me out of this because they don't expect that I could succeed here and I'm not typically what would succeed in these spaces. I was very cautious about that whole thing. A lot of what I was doing with URI was making sure that how can we make this campus more of a reflection of the world we live in and the state we're in.
Aria Mia Loberti:And then of course there were certain access barriers like how can the classrooms be more accessible. And our class was in like a really good classroom that was like super accessible and super cool. But like a lot of other classrooms were stairs in like an amphitheater and there was like the teeny tiny screen and so I couldn't see the screen at the time. Like I knew that there were lots of students who wouldn't be able to walk down the stairs and they didn't really have the option to like not so like a lot of spaces just weren't physically accessible. And I'm like so how can we do that to make sure that everybody can access every space as opposed to have to put in like a room change request?
Aria Mia Loberti:And so a lot of I would work with the conduct people and I would work with media at URI and try to get all these things out there. And Ingrid was the beacon, I think, for a lot of people because they might not have wanted to hear from me. I don't want to say they wouldn't have wanted to hear from me, that came out wrong. I, without Ingrid, presented because my vision impairment on the spectrum of vision impairments there's like like ten percent of people who are totally blind and then like the other ninety percent or whatever like you you can look up the exact statistic I don't know is like has some sort of sight and I was on the like far end of that spectrum so I had a lot of usable sight but it was just limited and I needed like to hold things close to my face and I needed access to
Bryan Dewsbury:things. Right. Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:And so I'm like
Bryan Dewsbury:Can can you tell us a little bit more about what that condition was just for those who didn't
Aria Mia Loberti:don't understand? Basically, think, like
Bryan Dewsbury:because a lot of people just think of blind not blind. Right? So yeah. Yeah.
Aria Mia Loberti:And so I think what's interesting is, like, it's such a big spectrum and I presented in such a way that looked fully sighted. And so the only way for me to communicate that to people who weren't, like, in the trenches in class with me Mhmm. Was literally Ingrid Because otherwise they couldn't it was very difficult because people do have this idea of like you're either blind, you can't see anything or you see shadows or you're not blind and you can pretty much see okay and you can get by even if you have to squint. And there is like this really big spectrum of what people would consider to be like low vision or legally blind that goes all the way from like you won't be able to see like a whiteboard if you sit in a classroom. But you would be able to see the paper in front of you or you'll be able to see your laptop.
Aria Mia Loberti:Or like you'll be able to look at your phone but you're going hold the phone close to your face. Like that's all part of the spectrum of people who would consider themselves to be part of the blind or low vision community who would identify that way. Guess we're fast forwarding maybe a little too much but in the last year and a half or so with my eye condition it's genetic. So like there isn't a cure for it and I don't ever want to imply that like my eye condition has been cured because it hasn't been. It's just there's been different adaptations that I've been able to have to now sort of not necessarily be spectrum of being low vision or being legally blind anymore.
Aria Mia Loberti:Now I do live my life like as a sighted person because my vision has been able to improve thanks to like very long story, but like thanks to like new contact lenses that I've been able to get. And because I'm so light sensitive, like, tint is really important.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Aria Mia Loberti:So when I would be in your class, like, we would sit me under
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. The one at the back left corner.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. It was always, like, in the corner so that the light wasn't on my desk.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:So, like, the fact that the desk was a very light colored wood and then the light was overhead Mhmm. Would, like, blind me. Like, I couldn't read my paper. I couldn't read my laptop. But if I scooted over, like, two feet to the left
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I wasn't under the light, I could see really Mhmm. Much much better. Right. And I could even see the screen that was near our table.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Because there were screens all around the room.
Aria Mia Loberti:There were screens all around the room.
Bryan Dewsbury:There was an active learning classroom just for people to know. Yeah.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. And it was like so cool because I'm like, I think my classmates learned about like, oh, we're gonna save that seat because it was literally a matter of like if I sat like one foot or two feet over, I wouldn't be able to do the class. Right. Although, could have been able to do a different technology, but it wasn't technology that I myself used because it would have been technology more for a fully a totally blind person.
Bryan Dewsbury:So I'm like and And that right there is something that really touched me because I I I feel like I hear a lot of narrative about, you know, kids today and college students and blah blah blah in such negative lens. And I I have to I mean, yes, I know there's a whole spectrum, but I've seen situations like that when faced with an opportunity to show genuine empathy and care. That's what they chose. Yeah. Right?
Bryan Dewsbury:So they could have been different. Right? Yeah. They could have said, I don't wanna it's not my job to kind of police this. I'm here for my education.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? They were so gracious.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. Like, I wanna be, like, up close. And I wanna be the one who's, like, making sure that, like, the the professor, like, sees me with my hand. Right?
Bryan Dewsbury:And then,
Aria Mia Loberti:Right. Like Right. And everyone was, they knew, like and I I had a class right before that was like all the way across campus. Like I was getting there right at ten in
Bryan Dewsbury:the morning.
Aria Mia Loberti:Right. And like people would know to save my seat.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And like it also got to the point where like sometimes the tables would move around. I don't know if you even caught wind of this one. But, like, sometimes the tables would, like, move around a little bit.
Bryan Dewsbury:Like, they would be Physically move or
Aria Mia Loberti:So, like because they were on the the, like, casters. Like, they roll.
Bryan Dewsbury:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Aria Mia Loberti:So, like, they would move, like, maybe, like, few feet in
Bryan Dewsbury:one direction,
Aria Mia Loberti:the chairs would be rearranged. And so, like, at because the classroom was quite bright and I would walk in and I'd get blasted with the bright light. I couldn't necessarily see where my chair was. And when I had my first semester, I didn't have Ingrid. So when I had your class the first time, I didn't have Ingrid.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I was still on the wait list to get her. And I
Bryan Dewsbury:You had a a walking stick.
Aria Mia Loberti:Right? I did. And I hated it because it didn't like, I could see enough that I could see that on the ground and I knew what it was missing. So I Mhmm. Couldn't deal with using the cane at all.
Aria Mia Loberti:Mhmm. Because I was like, It's one of those things that's so helpful to so many people but it just didn't work for me because like I said this is such a big spectrum that you can't expect every tool to work for somebody. One of the things was my classmates learned, because the two other students in my group learned that if the table was not where I would expect it to be because I would walk in and I didn't have Ingrid to point me to the chair which she later would have been trained to do. And what she did when I was your learning assistant, like she would just bring me to my chair.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:They would like on the chair. They would like pat on the chair so I
Bryan Dewsbury:would Oh, really?
Aria Mia Loberti:Hear
Bryan Dewsbury:it. I don't think I knew that.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. I would hear it. And they wouldn't have to be like, Aria, here's your chair because look at what a saint I am. Right. Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:Right. Was like the most subtle thing that I just picked up on that I could hear it and that's how I would locate it because I was getting like this combination of light and blur and shapes and whatever, people and sounds. And I would pick up on that and I would know where to sit and then once I sat down I would be in such a way that the light wasn't bothering me. And so it was just like these little things that were so cool and I had never experienced that in my life before. I had always just experienced well, sort of like screw you mentality.
Aria Mia Loberti:And maybe it was just that I was hanging out with really bad people but I came to URI and here were all these people who were like, wasn't just the professors and the admin or whatever but I'm like and then when I got Ingrid everything was so much easier to explain to people because people understand guide dog equals vision but if they see somebody walking around and then you say to them like oh I actually have low vision. They're like, well, where is your cane? And I'm like, well, I don't I have it in my bag for emergencies but like it doesn't really work for me. So Right. Whatever.
Aria Mia Loberti:So yeah. Anyway, it was very interesting to like
Bryan Dewsbury:Well, I remember even the year after when you were my learning assistant. Yeah. You graciously allowed us to do a a pedigree analysis Oh
Aria Mia Loberti:my god.
Bryan Dewsbury:Of because it's a genetic condition. Right? So you you I think you went and you figured out who had it, who didn't have it, and so we worked through
Aria Mia Loberti:Yes.
Bryan Dewsbury:How it came down to you. Yes. It was kinda complicated,
Aria Mia Loberti:but we did it. We we basically were like, we don't really know. Yeah. But like, so why
Bryan Dewsbury:do you think
Aria Mia Loberti:it's autosomal recessive? Like, my neither of my parents demonstrate it, but they would have to carry the gene in somewhere in both of their lines. They would have to have someone who expressed this trait and I'm like oh this is so interesting and so when we did the genetics section which ironically was the exam that I got my 89 on when I took with us I'm not gonna let this go.
Bryan Dewsbury:I sense a tone there.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. I was like, oh wait, this is so cool. And that was what we did and it was so interesting because we were trying to figure out how it came to me and like when it would have had to have worked out and that was just really fun. But everyone learned about it and everyone was like, I think even if you have somebody in your life who is blind or low vision or has a disability and so you might be more familiar with how these things work, it is so interesting to figure out how much intricacy goes into that part of our culture and our communities because there were times where I was operating even though I had low vision, operating as a fully sighted person because the lighting allowed me to. But there were other times where I was legit totally blind.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I think people expect that this is your set condition. Even if they understand it might be low vision they expect this is the set condition and this is how it is throughout your whole experience. And people will understand vision loss. Like you'll get older and your vision deteriorate which is not something that's a trait of my eye condition. So like all these things I think it was just so cool to see people understand and how it translates to so many other parts of our world.
Aria Mia Loberti:It translates obviously to other disabilities but like I mean obviously when I introduce people to this topic and I say the word spectrum people always bring gender. Not the same thing as like parallel. It's like this parallel experience of like people understand I think maybe a little bit more because we it's been a bit better I guess, like circulated in our culture that gender is a spectrum. And so I'm like, that that's really cool for for that to be a parallel and for people to understand that because I'm like, if they understand that they're gonna be able to understand like
Bryan Dewsbury:But but is it is it still a challenge to discuss it in the sense that, you know, agenda spectrum, there are different ways you could kind of show up on that spectrum and each way is is is fine in the sense that if that's who you are, that's who you are. Yeah. Right? But in terms of this vision spectrum, I hope I can say this without sounding judgy, but there's probably a part of the spectrum you voluntarily don't want to be on.
Aria Mia Loberti:Right? I think
Bryan Dewsbury:Is that a fair way to say it or no?
Aria Mia Loberti:So. I'm like, well, obviously, especially if you are born with it. Right? Right. You know that this might be a condition that you develop later in life or something, which I was born with it.
Aria Mia Loberti:Obviously, genetic. So I'm like, I always came into this with this mindset of like, oh, this is just a really cool different perspective to have on life and like, you're always gonna have a different perspective in whatever room you're in. That's really cool. But like I totally understand and appreciate now, especially as someone who's had my vision corrected and who is now a like essentially a fully sighted person. I don't have television still but like basically apart from that like I don't face
Bryan Dewsbury:access think barriers. I've told you that. But
Aria Mia Loberti:I'm like it's so interesting because like skin color is always one of those things where I'm like, still, like, there are places where I'm like still very lost about skin color because contrast still works very differently with my vision. I'm like but I'm like, it's so interesting to like for me to be in this position where I now am a year, year and a half ish out from not having any access barriers in my life at all. I have no access barriers. I have never been in that position where I'm like, I can go into a space and people see petite white lady.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And like that's it. Mhmm. And I'm like that's really really weird for me because I'm so used to walking into spaces and not only having an access barrier but having people judge you based on how you look and what they consider to be other. And I think that one of the things with blindness and low vision in particular is there is and it is I want to say it is more rare. I don't have any stats on this but I'm just assuming that it is more rare for someone to gain and improve their vision over time than it would be for somebody to lose vision over time.
Aria Mia Loberti:That's just an assumption I'm making. So I'm like, but I do know and I know other people who have had a very similar vision correction experience whether it's through surgery or through technology or something like that. And I'm like, we don't know. And I think this has just made me realize so much. We don't know what our lives are going to bring and I didn't go into trying on contact lenses that that was going to be a fix for my access barrier needs.
Aria Mia Loberti:I still have my diagnosis, I still have my condition. I just want to make that super quick. But I'm like I didn't go into this being like this is going to solve that problem. And then I realized how much of a problem the problem was when it got solved. I was always like we just went into this Because whole
Bryan Dewsbury:the comparative thing.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. We just had a whole discussion about me saying like I was trying to like fix access barriers on campus and like I obviously knew the problem was there. But it's just made me so much more upset at the state of our freaking world. Because I'm like this is so some of this stuff is Right. So And like now I have the perspective of like something really easy like I guess a good example is like looking on Instagram at a picture.
Aria Mia Loberti:Mhmm. And like before I would be like squinting at the picture and trying to figure it out sometimes. Other times I would see the picture clearly. Would depend on the lighting, the contrast, whatever. And so I would sometimes turn on audio on my phone and sometimes there would be text on the image and it would describe the image.
Aria Mia Loberti:But oftentimes people didn't put that alternative text on the image so I didn't have a way to access the image. And now I'm like, oh I can scroll through Instagram and I can look at whatever picture and
Bryan Dewsbury:it
Aria Mia Loberti:doesn't matter. Like, what am I going to miss out on that I'm wearing a red dress in the picture? Whatever. I'm like it's just so mind blowing because I'm like adding something as simple as a description to a picture on social media when you post it seems like a really simple thing and I think that's a really interesting metaphor for us making our spaces accessible and making our laws accessible and actually enforcing those laws and all these things. I'm like what I thought that this would be one of those things where I'd have a lens of distance and I think through talking about my lived experience as a low vision person, as someone on the spectrum of blindness with all these access barriers is coming now from a lens of distance.
Aria Mia Loberti:But it's still an authentic discussion of an experience.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah because you had both. Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. And I'm like, I mean you don't know what the hell is gonna happen to you in your life. I'm like, for all I know, something else is gonna hit me and then I'm gonna have like different vision again. Don't know.
Bryan Dewsbury:Let's hope not.
Aria Mia Loberti:I know. Yeah. So I'm like, you don't know. And so I'm like, you don't know what your life is going to bring. And so I think that I didn't expect any of this.
Aria Mia Loberti:And so now I'm sort of like, well, I can't physically represent that population the way I used to and I can't be the person to, like, showcase the need. But I do understand the need from a very authentic place. And I like, we all sort of need to do something about it.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. I mean
Aria Mia Loberti:I know. Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:And so selfishly, I mean, I I agree with you, and I I will take it a step further to say, like, you know, in terms of just to be very specific here about the rights and history of African Americans. Right? And, you know, what is you know, the term we use in the field is allyhood, allyship. Right?
Aria Mia Loberti:And Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:And it's important that those who didn't necessarily have to live the experience of the marginalized Yeah. Be willing to speak up on behalf of it. So it's, you know, it's it's a tricky space because I know and I'm sure you probably experienced this. People like, well, you're not legally blind now. And so so that I think there's always gonna be a little bit of that, but I think my experience has been for the most part.
Bryan Dewsbury:People are happy when everybody takes the mentality is all of our jobs to be advocates for each other.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:And like it's just as simple as like you you know, knock on the back of the chair. Right. So that
Bryan Dewsbury:you're Right. Right. Your way. Back to intro bio.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. It's literally that simple in some of these cases and then other times it's literally like I'll hear all the time about discrimination cases or people being refused service at a place of business solely on the basis of disability which is a thing that still happens. It's annoying. And I'm like we're still dealing with this stuff and we don't have people in power who are enforcing those types of laws. And if we continue to live in a society and in a culture that allows those things to slip through the cracks we're still doing a disservice to each other.
Aria Mia Loberti:And so I think it's like I'm a bit stuck on where we can go other than holding our leaders accountable and being good people ourselves.
Bryan Dewsbury:I mean, I know you're doing that. I know you're doing that very well. Let me
Aria Mia Loberti:to hold people accountable. Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Let me let me jump back to the PhD program.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. Go ahead.
Bryan Dewsbury:Remember when we I I have to check back my text and see, but I do I do remember we had exchanged a couple of texts and he had told me about a casting call.
Aria Mia Loberti:Oh, yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:That that you you reply to a little bit on a whim. Yeah. And I'm gonna let you tell the rest of that story.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. So, I mean, I I think I alluded already once to, like, having had a career change in middle of grad school, and this is the career change. So, basically, did from URI I went to England for just over a year and I did my Masters. It was through the Fulbright which is awesome because it was this whole thing about cultural ambassadorship and bridging those gaps. Really embodied who I was as a student and as a person.
Aria Mia Loberti:It was just the most amazing program for me to be a part of. I knew that whatever I aspired to do or wherever I ended up in grad school that I really wanted to try to be Fulbright if And I like the odds are so difficult and like I managed to pull it off and so I went to The UK and I did my masters and it was in the middle of COVID. And during that whole time, like I said at the beginning, I was like I love what I'm studying and I love the questions I'm asking but this is not where I thought it was going to be and this does not feel right. Something about this as much as I like like my people that I'm with and I like this program, something is wrong. And I can't put my finger on it and it doesn't have anything to do with the quality of this program.
Aria Mia Loberti:Was literally the best program in the world for ancient rhetoric. It was amazing. It was such a huge gift. I can't even believe that I even went there. And I was like, you don't know this part of the story.
Aria Mia Loberti:In the middle of the night, I would call my best friend who I met at URI and we would write a book. And we spent that entire sixteen, eighteen month period. She was a middle school teacher at the time. We both ditched our jobs. It's a long story.
Aria Mia Loberti:But we both ditched our jobs. But at this point she was a middle school teacher, I was doing grad school. The time difference worked out. That we would have eight like to twelve hours a day that when I was done with my studies I would get on the phone and we wrote a novel together. And I was like, maybe this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
Aria Mia Loberti:I think I'm supposed to be like distilling all of this information and like knowledge that I have and this like experience of the world that I've been able to have. Like it's a very limited experience because I'm still very young but like I think I'm supposed to be writing. I think something is calling me to writing fiction. And like characters. Something about characters.
Aria Mia Loberti:And it was like, I swear to God, was like I cast a spell. It was the weirdest experience I've ever had. It was like I manifested it. I cast a spell. I don't know.
Aria Mia Loberti:And so we're writing this book. Right? And I'm like, we're gonna get this thing published because something's gonna happen with this book. Like this is supposed to be the path that I'm on. But like obviously you can't quit your job and just be like, oh writer, like that's not sustainable.
Aria Mia Loberti:Like wish it was for so many people. Like, So now I had already had my grad school, my PhD rather, set up in Penn I had deferred the year for the Fulbright. Went to Penn State. I lasted about six weeks. I was miserable.
Aria Mia Loberti:I had the world's best PhD advisor. Straight up. Amazing. Incredible. She was in every way as like a scholar and as a human being.
Aria Mia Loberti:I cannot sing her praises more. Exceptional. And she realized, it was very obvious, but she realized that I was not happy. And also that I was not necessarily this community, this friendship, this beautiful space that I had at Uriah with people who I have and have not stayed in touch with but just these incredible people. I expected that when I got to Penn State and the pandemic lifted up enough for us to go to school.
Aria Mia Loberti:I expected that sense of community again, especially when your grad program is so small. And I did not get that. And I am not going to get into detail.
Bryan Dewsbury:I'm not going
Aria Mia Loberti:trash talk people. But it was not a pleasant social experience for me. And she recognized that. And so that coupled with the fact that I was like something's wrong. This isn't getting me the answers to my questions anymore as much as I love it.
Aria Mia Loberti:What do I do? Maybe I should run for office. And I literally had a meeting where I sat down in her. Mhmm. This was like a week before the casting search that you told me before.
Aria Mia Loberti:Sat in her office for like two hours and I when I tell you like hysterically sobbed. And I'm like I don't think that something is wrong. I'm on the wrong path. I don't know why. I don't know why.
Aria Mia Loberti:I love what I'm studying so it should be the right path. And she's like you feel constrained by academic culture and by where just she's like it's so old fashioned and it doesn't let you be you. It expects that you meet these certain things. And she's like we are not set up to prepare people for becoming anything else other than a professor. And I'm like but I think I potentially will really like teaching and my assistantship did not include teaching at the time.
Aria Mia Loberti:It was just research. So she's like well maybe next semester you'll feel differently when you teach. You'll feel that impact that you can have on people and you'll feel like you're making more of a difference and not shouting into an echo chamber. I was hysterical. And I was like, I think I'm gonna run for office.
Aria Mia Loberti:And she was like, Please don't do that. I'm like, I I'm old enough now. I can run for the house to represent him.
Bryan Dewsbury:She's like, you can do a lot of things.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. Maybe.
Bryan Dewsbury:But here's what you should not do.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. Don't do that. Like, we're gonna calm down. We're gonna breathe. You're gonna go home.
Bryan Dewsbury:What? Like politics is toxic or something? I I don't understand the
Aria Mia Loberti:She's why that it was like this cesspool? And I'm like, So anyway yeah. So I'm like she's like, we're gonna figure out your path. We're gonna figure it out together and I'm here for you. And literally like a few days later I get this text from a teacher who I hadn't heard from since I was 11.
Aria Mia Loberti:And she is the teacher. Her job is to like teach students how to use a white cane, which as I have already said is like something that I did not necessarily found worked for me.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And fine. She was a real fixture in my life though. She was like very influential and I really liked her but we hadn't stayed in touch. And so she texted me out of the blue and she was like, hey, Aria. I saw this casting search.
Aria Mia Loberti:I don't know if you've heard of this book called All the Light We Cannot See. It's this big World War two novel. Won a Pulitzer. They're looking for a girl who is either blind, totally blind, or low vision to play this character who's totally blind, who's the hero of this story. And they're going out to, like, people who've never acted as well as real actresses.
Aria Mia Loberti:And, like, this is so cool. This is an amazing opportunity. You should apply. I don't know why I can just see you doing this. And so I'm like that's so cool because that means, right?
Aria Mia Loberti:This is where my brain goes. That means Netflix who is making it and the producers who do like Stranger Things and like Marvel and all these things are actually thinking about like we can't tell the story with a random famous sighted actress. We're gonna find someone who has lived experience.
Bryan Dewsbury:Got it.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I'm like, this is the best thing ever because this is like all the stuff that I've tried to embody over the And
Bryan Dewsbury:I'm like,
Aria Mia Loberti:oh, I hope they find the girl. This is so cool. Like, let me know if any of your students actually apply. She's like, no. You should apply.
Aria Mia Loberti:I'm like, but I don't act. I'm not gonna do it. I've never acted. I never thought about acting. I really am, an incredibly introverted person like unless I feel very comfortable with somebody.
Aria Mia Loberti:I or unless I'm like now like media trained and like do it. Like I'm like, I shouldn't say that. I guess it's true.
Bryan Dewsbury:I know.
Aria Mia Loberti:Know you. So I'm gonna sit down and tell you
Bryan Dewsbury:this stuff.
Aria Mia Loberti:Right. But like I'm not gonna I'm not this verbose and this like whatever with a lot of people and so I'm like, I can't even imagine being up in front of all those people and acting and being a character and like I can't do it. And then I had another couple of really bad days in grad school and then I was miserable and I came home and cried again and I'm like well let me send an email. I loved that book. I loved it.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:I loved that book so much.
Bryan Dewsbury:It's a great book.
Aria Mia Loberti:It's a beautiful Yeah. And I was like, I love books. I love storytelling. I love characters. I loved writing that novel and something told me in my soul, like, novel needs to get published or I need to be doing something like that with my life.
Aria Mia Loberti:Maybe try this out and then maybe you could, like, audition for the play Penn State or the improv troupe in town or whatever. I'm like, this could be a cool thing you try in the comfort of your own home with nobody watching and nobody judging you. So I emailed them and they sent me audition sides which is like a scene from the script. And I was like, she's feeling all of the things that I'm feeling right now. Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:She feels lost and confused and she doesn't have a lot of people to lean on. And she feels like you know, there's this big upset in her life and I really feel like I can connect with this. And so I filmed the scene but I didn't
Bryan Dewsbury:So is it almost like what was sent to you got you at the right time?
Aria Mia Loberti:I think so.
Bryan Dewsbury:Because it got to you at a point where you felt exactly like how she felt in the scene they sent.
Aria Mia Loberti:Where she's in the scene, she's telling her father that, like, I know I'm different and I know you tried to protect me but it's about time I go protect myself. That's the scene. And it's in, I believe it's in episode two if anybody is curious, it's the scene where they're fleeing from Paris after And the Nazis take it starts with like can I carry your bags? If anybody wants to go, that was the audition scene if anybody wants is curious. And I was like, that scene just I read it.
Aria Mia Loberti:And it's very the scene that we ended up filming is quite different than the audition because I had so many conversations like with them once I got cast but like I don't wanna jump the gun. But anyway Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I filmed this audition.
Aria Mia Loberti:I didn't know that you were supposed to read just your lines. So I read my lines and then I also read the lines for the father character. And, it was a mess. It was a hot mess and I did it in one take. It was an absolute disaster.
Aria Mia Loberti:But I think they saw something obviously because they called me back. But I think what they saw wasn't talent but was the ability for somebody to kind of make an idiot out of themselves. Which is literally like 80%
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. And of
Aria Mia Loberti:like I think they saw like honesty and so they called me back and the casting director was really amazing and she was like you've never acted acted before and I was like no I'm like I've never even done like a school play I've done nothing and she's like I'm gonna take you through this from the ground up I really believe in you and you need to be prepared because when you go do the next thing I want you to go into the room and be ready and I was like what do you mean the next thing? And she's like, Yeah, no, no, it's fine. But if this is something you want to do, she's like, I fully believe you can do it. You just need to apply yourself the way you've clearly applied yourself to the rest of your life. Two weeks later I got cast by this big famous director in Netflix and all these people and I got cast in, the lead part in this huge series that was going to have me opposite Oscar winners and it was, a little diabolical.
Aria Mia Loberti:It was a lot on me. So then, I got permission to tell my PhD advisor that, Hey, you know that career change that I had a panic attack in your office? Like I think I have potentially a career change. And I went to her house. I'd never been to her house before.
Aria Mia Loberti:We literally sat at her kitchen table and she made me like a veggie burger. And I just sat at her kitchen table and we just like stared at each other and didn't say anything. I was like, what what just happened? I don't know. Like, I
Bryan Dewsbury:Was the veggie burger that good?
Aria Mia Loberti:It was that good. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, what do I do? Like, what do we do now?
Aria Mia Loberti:Like, I don't wanna not go to school, but I wanna do this too. Like, I was still was like, in my head, I'm like, I need a backup plan because maybe this doesn't work out for me. Maybe I'm no good at this. Like I get there and they fire me because I suck. Like that was definitely and so she's like, we can you can still keep going.
Aria Mia Loberti:You will make it work. And she made it work for as long as she could.
Bryan Dewsbury:I'll leave
Aria Mia Loberti:it there. Then there was a point where I just couldn't work anymore. And yeah, I went from that show. We filmed six months in Hungary in France and we filmed like six seventies a week some weeks and it was I learned from the ground up
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah.
Aria Mia Loberti:How to do it.
Bryan Dewsbury:That sounds intense.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I found the answers to some of my questions.
Bryan Dewsbury:So I I wanna get back to that in
Aria Mia Loberti:a second.
Bryan Dewsbury:All in Light We Cannot See, four part miniseries on Netflix
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Based on the Pulitzer prize winning book by the same name. It's beautiful. I I had read the book before long before you got cast.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:I was a little surreal. I'm not gonna lie to you. Oh, no. Seeing you. I mean, in a good way.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? I mean
Aria Mia Loberti:I don't think this
Bryan Dewsbury:is this is acting, but this is somebody who I taught and who you know, I I know I know Aria. Right? Like, we didn't just I didn't just teach Aria. Aria didn't just be in LA. Like, we had many, many conversations about life and her journey and stuff.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. Like, I was in your office all time. Right. And, like, I came to the lab, and I worked in the lab. And I, like, worked for you over the summer, and, we knew each other after the four years were up.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:And I'm reflecting now on your statement about connecting to that scene, right
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:That you read. As you went through the ground from the ground up to to to play this marvelous role in this miniseries, did you continue to connect to the character character at the same level?
Aria Mia Loberti:No. That's what was so interesting to me is that scene, I swear, was the right scene for me to read to get this because I didn't I don't think I would have had the ability at the time to be able to bridge the gap for what I understood about the character and what I could imply about how they were changing her to make her come alive on screen to something else. That was just the right moment. And I think what was very interesting, is I worked with up to the lead up to the filming. Not while we were filming because I think everyone kind of the consensus was not to do this but like for like two months or three months up to the filming before I left Penn State and went to Budapest with this incredible acting coach.
Aria Mia Loberti:And one of the things that we talked about we never read a scene and he knew I was an academic and he himself is an academic. He's a Juilliard and he's like he's a true academic. And they put me in the right person. And we never read a scene together but he knew that I was going to approach this from a research perspective. Part of it was going to be historical and part of it was going to be the history of how she's totally blind and I'm not.
Aria Mia Loberti:Like how does total blindness look in a person who understands fundamentally, not to get like super dark, but that they're going to, they're more likely to be exterminated by the Nazis because this takes place in World War II. So how would somebody who is totally blind knows that the Nazis target people like them, How would she behave? How would her mannerisms look? Because they wouldn't look how somebody totally blind now who has freedom and rights and They all these wouldn't look the same. She'd be masking a lot.
Aria Mia Loberti:And so we talked about those things. And what I unpacked with him when I came to realize that is that I, apart from having low vision and not being totally blind and being from 2022 and not 1942, I I don't have anything in common with her, really. Right. And I think that was really difficult for me to wrap my head around. Like like you and at the end of the day, it's the whole thing that I always talk about.
Aria Mia Loberti:It's like, you don't have to share anything in common with somebody to be able to connect with them Mhmm. In real life. So if you don't share anything in common with her and you met her in real life, you would still connect with her. You'd still feel empathy. You'd still feel a connection.
Aria Mia Loberti:You'd still feel her pain. You can make the leap from that to performing as her and expressing that yourself.
Bryan Dewsbury:It almost feels like that's what your groupmates in Intro Bio
Aria Mia Loberti:Yes.
Bryan Dewsbury:Did Yeah. When you sat next to them. They didn't need to have the same experience as you have had Yeah. To connect with you
Aria Mia Loberti:No.
Bryan Dewsbury:And and show genuine empathy.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like and it's not about I think so many I came in with this preconception of like acting as just imitating people. Like watching someone and imitating them.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And like, oh what does it look like to be sad? So be sad right now. And it's the same thing as those moments when you're feeling empathy or understanding. And I think sometimes people might complete empathy with pity and that's very much not the same thing. But I'm like empathy and understanding with another human being and you're not going to necessarily conceptualize I'm going to do this because I'm going to be a good person for this less fortunate person who is marginalized or whatever.
Aria Mia Loberti:I'm like it's just about I this is my friend.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And this makes our life a little easier.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:It's like as simple as passing somebody pen. And I'm like, so all of this research and all of this time and detail and like I did writing, I wrote literally like fan fiction from her POV. I'm like everything all these details. Like at the end of the day, I got to set and I threw it all out the window because it's really just about being present with another person. And the difference is just that that other person is fake and you have to find that person inside your own mind.
Aria Mia Loberti:And so me writing that novel and doing all this stuff like help me prep for that.
Bryan Dewsbury:So you you kind of bring it back to from those nights with your best friend. Yeah. So so are those the questions that you felt you got answered in the experience?
Aria Mia Loberti:I think so. And I think that was a big part of it. And I think the other big part of it was just and I've had to really grapple and reckon with this because I was like, oh, they hired this person to play this character because they wanted an authentic portrayal of low vision. And so I went into this thinking like my career is going to be two things. One, authentic portrayals of this population that like frankly give or take a couple of minor episodes of things some appearances by incredible actresses and actors who do bring that authentic experience.
Aria Mia Loberti:There's nothing mainstream that does that. There's nobody pushing that gap and fighting for these people to have their voice heard. And like I'm going be that person. And it's either it's going to be that, I'm going to bring this authentic representation to a blind or low vision character and I can do it authentically or I'm going to push the barrier because like I said at the beginning I physically had looked like what people expect a sighted person to look like so I could play a sighted person. So I was like oh I'm going to push the barrier and show that people with any type of disability whether it's invisible or visible can be cast equally.
Aria Mia Loberti:They don't have to be cast in roles that just talk about that identity. And then I became fully sighted. And all of that, all of those things that I was like this is my path and this is the fight I'm going to fight and this is what I'm going to embody and I'm going to show people that you don't have to be pigeonholed into your identity. That you can be more than just what people what the label people put in front of your personhood is. I now I'm a say like, what do I do?
Aria Mia Loberti:So I'm like, I have to now figure out where in my storytelling, where in my acting specifically because I can still write authentically from the writing perspective. I feel comfortable with that. But the embodiment is now clouded by the lens of a year, a year and a half distance. It's just gonna keep getting more distant. Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:I can't embody that in good conscience when I fought so hard for, like, people to be authentically represented. Right. So I need to leave the door open and I I can't do that when I've been like, we can't have sighted people portraying
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah.
Aria Mia Loberti:Blind people like I can't. So I'm like, I
Bryan Dewsbury:So where does that leave you now?
Aria Mia Loberti:So this is interesting because I've realized that like, and I think deep down I always knew this. I always knew it was gonna leave me here. And it's so weird. I need to figure out the stories that I think people need to see and hear right now.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And sometimes those are books and sometimes those are films. So much of the kind of characters that I want to bring to life now are the people who have something hidden about them. Whether it's a hidden trauma, a hidden history, something that the people around them don't get to see but through the story or through the film or the series we unpack. That has been really special because I felt even more so than when I was like oh this is my path with either championing the blind and low vision roles or pushing against the expectation that I could only do that. That wasn't my path.
Aria Mia Loberti:I feel so much more honest on this path and that's difficult thing for me to say because such a big part of my identity was being and embodying this beautiful, like really, really beautiful way of seeing the world that, yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah.
Aria Mia Loberti:I lost it, and I have grief Yeah. That I lost it. So
Bryan Dewsbury:Has your pulse
Aria Mia Loberti:I can pull that grief into other things, and everyone has grief.
Bryan Dewsbury:I guess that was my I guess that was my next question. Right? So does Yeah. Has your the work you've done or are doing after that series, how has that work been able to help you manage that grief? Yes.
Bryan Dewsbury:Or lean into this this new way of your why?
Aria Mia Loberti:It's it's really interesting because like there is a particular role that I got cast in before I like I was just starting this journey with the contact lenses and my vision getting corrected and I was just sort of learning about this. Ingrid was phasing into the semi retirement. I got cast in this role that is, for all intents and purposes, my dream role. It is a beautiful I can't spoil what it is, but it is a real person, a real woman. Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And she's sighted. Like that was a big accomplishment for for me as someone who wanted to push that barrier and now as somebody who is sighted is like that story is such a good example. It's really hard to not spoil this. Really is such a good example of somebody who has had her story is it's a true story about expectations she had in her life with what she was going to accomplish and that she was pushing the boundaries in her time period for what women could achieve. And she was going to get educated at a very elite level and it didn't work out the way she thought.
Aria Mia Loberti:And some people probably can deduce who this person is just by that. I'm like, it didn't work out the way she thought and she ended up really getting taken advantage of by the people around her and people took credit for her work. Mhmm. And go science people. Find the Easter eggs of that.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. And I'm like I
Bryan Dewsbury:I think I think may have discussed that in our class. Yeah. You might have. As you know because you took that class.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. It could be like one of three different women.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I connect to that so much and that's my whole thing. That's at the end of the day, I think this is what all my questions boil down to. Everybody tells you no and you have to dig yourself out of crap. Like what I alluded to in my childhood would be really, really, really disturbing in a lot of ways. When you have to dig yourself out of that and you have these expectations of what you're going to achieve and you still achieve something great but it doesn't look the way you thought it looked and it's a different story than my story, Those are the type of people and I'm like those are the stories I tell.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:The beautiful thing about all of this is like those are the opportunities that find their way to me but I also think I am never going to be comfortable solely just going in and like bringing just being an actress. Because I can
Bryan Dewsbury:So so you realize Yeah. You brought this conversation back all
Aria Mia Loberti:the
Bryan Dewsbury:way to the beginning of where you and I started off today about coming to URI
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:And asking and and having questions you wanted answered and not pigeonholing yourself into a major. Well, I mean, you eventually did whatever, but I mean, but the thing that really was interesting to you was getting answers to those questions. Right? And and and it's it's it's
Aria Mia Loberti:still have questions. Right. Well, right. Yes. Yes.
Bryan Dewsbury:It's curious to see how you've taken that
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mindset into this space. And and maybe this is why I I felt maybe we connected the way we did. Right? Because I I I don't like to say this out loud a lot because I don't think people kinda get it, especially in academia where they assume any rigid expectations of what a student should be doing, what a grad student should be doing, what a professor should be doing. You know?
Bryan Dewsbury:Up to the this up to this day, right, I still have people who are like, well, how are you in a baro department? You ask these questions. It's like, guys, just be curious. Yes. At the end of the day, does it matter?
Aria Mia Loberti:It doesn't matter what department does matter? Freaking labeling.
Bryan Dewsbury:Well, why are you drawing lines where lines don't need to be drawn? Does it make you feel comfortable? Right? And and so so I guess maybe it is a meta question. What is what is the work entail in making people feel comfortable with with that sort of unknown space of I'm just trying to get questions answered?
Bryan Dewsbury:And these systems can be put in place that support the question asked, asking and seeking. But it shouldn't restrain you into saying like, well, in order to answer this question, you have to go down this one road.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. Right. Well, I think well, it gets back to, like, the fact that we tell young people all the time. Like, you're gonna follow this one thing and don't you dare stray from that path because that's impractical and this is how you have to make money. And if you don't make money, you're not gonna like, able to make money in any other way and you've wasted all this time now studying this particular thing or doing this thing or being good at whatever and now you're wasting your talent or you're wasting your time.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I'm like, I think if instead of approaching our education system in such a way that we were setting people up to enter into a thankless workforce, in which frankly they may or may not make enough money to survive, that's the reality of our world right now, I'm like we are doing our young people such a disservice because if we set them up to ask the questions and be curious they're gonna perform better on their tests. They're going to perform better in life they're going
Bryan Dewsbury:to have the
Aria Mia Loberti:tools they need to figure out how do I survive.
Bryan Dewsbury:Because
Aria Mia Loberti:if you told me that I was going to drop out of my PhD program, I'm just gonna like I will find a way to get back to this. Like I don't want to leave it unfinished because I do love what I was doing. Mhmm. And if I don't have the pressure of having to go into that career, think I will actually love it even more. Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And it works with what studying now. And I still say I am studying this. I'm studying acting. I'm studying writing. I'm studying all these things.
Aria Mia Loberti:I'm never going to stop studying. And I'm like, I know there are people who don't want to study. But like you need to figure out what works for you. And if we keep putting these expectations on people that you need to put yourself into a box and your major is going to determine your job and your job is going to determine how much money you make and how much success you have and whether or not people actually respect you. I'm like, that's so miserable and I don't think it's good for anybody.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I certainly don't think it's good for the trajectory of our world.
Bryan Dewsbury:And I fully agree. I don't know. Let let me get you out of here on this last question. Yeah. So you might the person who have been calling you for five minutes of this podcast, Ingrid.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. I called you Ingrid several times. Yeah. Ingrid has a book.
Aria Mia Loberti:Ingrid has a book.
Bryan Dewsbury:Ingrid has a book. Yeah. I'm I'm excited. I I I thank you for letting me see an advanced copy. I mean
Aria Mia Loberti:I wanted to get you a physical one, but they're not gonna show up in my house in front of a few days. So I'm like
Bryan Dewsbury:Oh, dear. They I mean, it's it's it's it's actually a real privilege, right, because I I met Ingrid when Ingrid was was
Aria Mia Loberti:The first.
Bryan Dewsbury:First Yeah. You know, your guide dog, like
Aria Mia Loberti:First day of her first day of school
Bryan Dewsbury:was super class effect. And, of course, people wouldn't notice, you know, because this happened off camera, but Ingrid gave me the, like, the best greeting
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Ever. Ingrid is 10, but still full of life. Yeah. So tell me what what led you to write the book and what you hope people kinda take from it when they read it?
Aria Mia Loberti:Well, I All The Light came out. You know, the series came out, and I went in from from that. I went in straight into another series and throughout this whole process, was like, wanna write. I wanna write. I wanna write.
Aria Mia Loberti:I wanna get this book that I wrote, this novel that I wrote out. And the unfortunate thing is a lot of that stuff has to do with marketability. And the book that I wrote is for middle grade students. Right. And that genre is really struggling, and it's in part because our literacy rates are plummeting.
Aria Mia Loberti:So like we don't want to get into that right now but like
Bryan Dewsbury:Can you sell a TikTok video? Yeah.
Aria Mia Loberti:And so I'm like, oh my god. Doing real well. So it was like this really nice practical conversation of like, it's good but it's you know, in another time this would be great. Interesting. Know, what about a picture book?
Aria Mia Loberti:And so I'm like, oh I never saw myself doing a picture book. This is really cool. And I'm like, actually I have a really good idea. And Ingrid went to the meeting with me or we had this conversation and I'm like, dog? How about her?
Aria Mia Loberti:She not only like her whole thing. I don't know how much this is like in the zeitgeist but like to be a guide dog you work really hard for two years. And you have to not only be super healthy and learn all the skills and be super well behaved, but you also have to love it. Because dogs don't get work, they just get this is fun game and I get treats.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:And so if they don't love that particular fun game, they're not gonna work. And so I'm like, this to me is a kid's book.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:This dog who thinks that she's so awesome and incredible and fabulous and she can't do any wrong. And then we see her on the page juxtaposed with these illustrations of like okay she kind of is doing wrong a little bit. But she gets to the point, she learns and studies and works hard enough that her confidence in herself starts out as misplaced and eventually is no longer misplaced. Right. And her story is fully like believe in yourself, fake it till you make it.
Aria Mia Loberti:Right. And I'm like kids
Bryan Dewsbury:Be willing to learn new things.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. Be curious, be excited, be like you're gonna meet this new person and like her being able to figure out that I would get like headaches in the sun and she would walk me in the shade. Like things like that. Like dogs Interesting. And I'm like oh it's so cool because like that is something that I think boils down, goes back to again bio 101 in the classroom and learning that empathy.
Aria Mia Loberti:And I'm like that is what she can tell And it's such a beautiful, I've come to really love the medium of kids picture books because every word, you only have, a couple 100 words or a few 100 words, and you have to fight for their right to be on that page.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:And yeah. As you can also Who's wisely. Yeah. Yeah. I talk a lot when I'm comfortable.
Aria Mia Loberti:And when I write, I write a lot. So that was hard for me to do. And when I learned that skill, think it's, like, an amazing skill.
Bryan Dewsbury:And think it's good for for for kids, you know, when they read that. I just like the normalization of the process.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? To kinda understand, you know, what it meant to kinda go through that. Without naming names, are you allowed to tell us what projects you have coming up? Can you speak in general speak? Is that possible?
Aria Mia Loberti:I can tell you I have signed on to a few different films.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Aria Mia Loberti:And the film industry right now is just so so slow. I think it's the slowest it's been since COVID. Maybe just as slow as COVID
Bryan Dewsbury:right now. Okay.
Aria Mia Loberti:So, like, you know, who knows when those things are going to be able to get onto people's televisions or, like, in people's movie theaters. But, like, another thing that I'm really, really proud of is I have actually started my own production company.
Bryan Dewsbury:Oh, congratulations.
Aria Mia Loberti:Thank you. I'm very excited. And I'm like this is when I said, like, I don't know if I'm content, like, solely being an actor. When I said that at the time, I was referring to, like, I wanna make change. I wanna be an advocate.
Aria Mia Loberti:I wanna also write. But also, like, I love acting so much because it lets me feel like I'm free.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And it lets me like put myself into someone else's shoes both in terms of the character and in terms of the director because it's really the director and the writer's vision that I'm bringing to life less than it is my vision.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Aria Mia Loberti:And so I'm like I also really want to have that vision and I have a vision for so many stories like whether it's books I've read or whatever. I'm like, I'm hoping that we're starting on this like really awesome project with one of my favorite authors and it will be the first thing through my production company. She is absolutely incredible. To be able to work with her is so cool. And, believe it or not, it's never and not what I thought I would do, which is the theme of this.
Aria Mia Loberti:It's gonna be a rom com. Right. Right. And so, like, I'll be able to write that, with her
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Aria Mia Loberti:And with my best friend, Molly, who also wrote the novel with me. Like, she is now my partner
Bryan Dewsbury:Former in middle school teacher.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah. And now she's like my partner in this business. Yeah. And so we both have this cool story of putting our jobs and asking our questions.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah.
Aria Mia Loberti:And it's so cool that I can start with this and who knows where that will be able to go. But, like, between that, the writing, hopefully middle grade books become marketable in the future. Because I like I really like writing that type of Yeah. But, like, yeah. There's so much stuff in it.
Aria Mia Loberti:Like, right now, next week, I start a three week plus long national book tour. So, like Okay. That's occupying headspace. Yeah. Yeah.
Aria Mia Loberti:Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:And and that's around the Ingrid book. Right?
Aria Mia Loberti:It is around the Ingrid book. Yeah. So Ingrid will travel with me for that.
Bryan Dewsbury:And Best of luck to you. You know, as a professor, I could say many professors don't get a chance to say this much because, you know, when we get jobs like the ones we have, you know, the what's on paper is that your job is to teach a class. Teach classroom. Teach a student. But I don't think we get a chance to say enough about what our students teach us.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? And so being able to be a witness to your journey, has been incredibly impactful and emotional.
Aria Mia Loberti:Thank you.
Bryan Dewsbury:And, it it it means a lot that something we did at some point was able to kinda sustain you and light a fire and keep keep that fire burning. So thanks for thanks for joining my podcast. Thank
Aria Mia Loberti:I'm driving real slow like I'm running
Bryan Dewsbury:Knowledge Unbound is brought to you by the Rios Institute. We are generously funded by the William and Flora Hewitt Foundation. Thank you so much for Aria to Aria, sorry, for joining us today and and being willing to go back in time, reminisce. And of course, you couldn't you couldn't see, but but we also join as you heard by her guide dog Ingrid who I also met when I met Aria. Segev, my wonderful producer.
Bryan Dewsbury:Full circle dude. If you what if you ever have you ever gotten a chance to talk? I mean, I know you're only, like, a few months out of undergrad. Right? But is there, like, a professor five years ago you wish you could go back and talk to just sort of blew your mind.
Segev Amasay:To be fair, I've always tried to meet my very first professors in undergrad, and I have for the most part. But as of
Bryan Dewsbury:right now, I think I've
Segev Amasay:kind of already achieved that goal because back when I started, I was fully online. I was still in Haiti until
Bryan Dewsbury:I ended up moving here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Segev Amasay:Until I ended up moving here the fall of that same year. 2021. Exact. Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Yeah. I get it. I get it. Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:I I was very I was very humbled by this conversation. Not not and I really wanna be careful here because I'm not trying to pitch this as any great thing I've done or, you know, not it's not a referendum on my teaching. Right? But but I do hope people kind of recognize that for for the most part when students go through the education process, there's a little bit of a facade in that we're here for a degree, you get a degree, you get a credential, you get a GPA, you get all these things that signal to the world you're ready for for technical work. Right?
Bryan Dewsbury:But beneath that facade is is something more intangible and and much more deep and much more undefined. Right? There's a search happening that that is not being described out loud, but it's happening all the same. And and maybe you just you only have words to put to that search process years and years and years after the the, you know, that emerging adult would stage in college. And so to the extent that the conversation I had with our area today allowed her to be able to express what that search was like and where it led to and why it led to those things.
Bryan Dewsbury:I hope people, students in particular who are going through that search right now. And I mean, think the most asset based way possible, right? I hope she was able to give meaning to that. And I hope those of us who are instructors who are shareholders in the higher ed process, understand the value of creating structures around students that allow that to to continue to be meaningful. I wish you a lot of meaning this week.
Bryan Dewsbury:I wish you a lot of meaning for the rest of the year, for the rest of the series. Thank you for joining us. Continue to be excellent teachers.
Aria Mia Loberti:I'll hear all the time about discrimination cases or people being refused service at a place of business solely on the basis of disability, which is a thing that still happens and it's annoying. I'm like we're still dealing with this stuff and we don't have people in power who are enforcing those types of laws and if we continue to live in society and in a culture that allows those things to slip through the cracks, we're still doing a disservice to each other.