PhD a Lifelong Dream for Chrissy Henderson
When Chrissy Henderson needs to relax or re-center, she climbs to the top of a 25-foot platform, grabs hold of a slender bar and
âThere are elements of fear involved,â says Henderson, a PhD student at the żì»îappâs âI canât say I donât always succumb to it, but I love it. I wouldnât call myself an adrenaline junkie â itâs more of a controlled risk. [And] for me, itâs another thing I can do despite my limitations.â
Not only will Henderson, 40, have fulfilled a lifelong dream when she collects her doctorate degree in engineering at żì»îappâs Commencement ceremony in June, but sheâll have done it as a legally blind single mother of two.
âI like being the unusual one [who] pushes the envelope,â Henderson says. âIf someone says, âOh, you canât do something,â Iâm always going to say, âYeah right, you watch!â And I think my PhD was evidence of that.â
Born with a genetic mutation that leads to hearing and vision loss, Henderson has been proving people wrong her entire life.
As a girl, she recalls, her peers often wrote her off because of her hearing aids. ââItâs not going to stay this way,ââ she told herself. ââIâm going to be something great when I get older.â So thatâs what I tried to do.â
After earning an undergraduate degree in physics/space science and a masterâs in math, Henderson took a job at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and immediately thrived in a male-dominated field. Today, as one of the bureauâs senior corrosion engineers, she designs electrochemical protection systems to prevent valuable metal infrastructure from rusting away.
When she decided to return to school for her PhD, she opted to on protecting transformer substations from terrorist attacks or vandalism â work of interest not just to her employer, but also to the FBI.
In professor lab, Henderson studied abalone mollusks as she searched for an elastic protective coating on brittle pressure vessels. The invertebrate provided insight that led her to an appropriate elastomeric coating, which confines fragments and protects the brittle âbushingsâ that are used on portions of the countryâs power grid.
âIt essentially behaves as a confinement for the fragments that result in a brittle transformer bushing when it gets shot,â Henderson says of the coating she helped develop. âIt wants to break in a bunch of pieces. The coating confines it so it doesnât shatter everywhere and hit neighboring equipment or personnel.â
Her research was challenging, of course, but Henderson says the academic work was the easy part. Because she is legally blind, Henderson doesnât drive. So, getting to and from campus involved hiring drivers, navigating Denverâs transit system, or catching rides with friends and roommates.
All the while, she held her full-time job and even for passage ofÌę which protects people with disabilities in custody battles. Under the bill, which Gov. Jared Polis has signed into law, courts canât use a disability as the basis for denying custody or adoption. Henderson was one of the faces at the forefront of the fight.
âIâve made a lifetime of advocating to get my needs met,â she says. âEven just getting my PhD, I did a lot of advocating for myself. There were plenty of times I was ultimately frustrated with the PhD process and wondering why on earth I was putting myself through this. The âpiled higher and deeperâ seemed to really apply. I just pushed through. You canât quit when it gets hard.â
With her new degree and title in hand (âDr. Hendersonâ has a nice ring to it, she says), the graduate-to-be is looking forward to expanding her work at the Bureau of Reclamation. And Henderson wouldnât be surprised if she ended up back in classes.
âNo matter what life throws at you, if you have something you want to do, you can do it,â she says. âYou just have to find a way. Donât let life hold you back.â
Itâs the way Henderson feels when sheâs flying through the air on the trapeze: no obstacles, no barriers.
But mostly, that she can soar as high as she'd like.