Emily Hargrove, PhD, is an FASD self-advocate, researcher, educator, author, speaker, and philosophical counselor whose work bridges living experience and academic scholarship. Diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome at one year of age through Vanderbilt, Emily grew up knowing she had FASD at a time when families were often given little information beyond the diagnosis and limited expectations for the future. She has described being told that there was little that could be done, an experience that helped shape her determination to challenge assumptions about what people with FASD can accomplish.
Emily began speaking publicly about FASD in 2008. She became a founding member of Self-Advocates with an FASD in Action (SAFA) and has served in national and international advocacy, education, and research roles. She is a member of the International Adult Leadership Cooperative of FASD Changemakers, where adults with FASD contribute their expertise as researchers, advisors, educators, mentors, and systems-change leaders. Her advocacy consistently emphasizes that FASD may affect every area of a person’s life without defining the entirety of who that person is.
Her journey has increasingly brought living experience into formal research. Emily has contributed to FASD health research, participated in work developing health supports for adults with FASD, and joined other FASD Changemakers in community-directed research examining the experiences of adults with diagnosed FASD.
In August 2026, that journey reached another milestone when Walden University awarded Emily a PhD in Psychology. Her dissertation, How Adults with FASD Describe Spiritual Experiences and Faith Formation, explored how adults with FASD understand faith and spirituality, including their relationship to resilience and psychological well-being. Her degree was conferred on August 19, 2026.
Dr. Hargrove’s advocacy illustrates an important evolution within the FASD movement: from people with FASD being asked to tell their stories to people with FASD becoming scholars, investigators, authors, advisors, and leaders who help determine the questions the field should be asking.