How Determined Lady Became First Black Deaf Person to Receive PhD in Canada

by Nathaniel Crabbe

When Jenelle Rouse became the first Black deaf person to receive a doctoral degree in Canada, she smashed a glass ceiling and paved a path for others.

In 2022, she earned her Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Western Ontario, inking her name in the country’s history books.

Before the achievement, Rouse had completed the Deaf and Hard Hearing Teacher Education Program at York University in Canada in 2008.

Rouse has been an educator at a bilingual school for the deaf in Ontario. That is not all; she works as a Canadian applied linguistics researcher and a body-movement dance artist.