Our Team
Judy L. Shanley,
Ph.D., is currently a Principal Research Analyst and the Co-Director of the Access Center, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). She has been employed at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) for nearly seven years. In her role as Co-Director, Dr. Shanley is responsible for managing all facets of the Center’s activities including budgets, staff, work deliverables, and reports. She oversees work associated with the Center’s TAcommunities initiative, outreach and web services, information sharing communities, and knowledge bank.
Prior to her current position, Dr. Shanley served as the Product and Communications Task Leader on the Elementary and Middle Schools Technical Assistance Center (EMSTAC), also funded by OSEP. Dr. Shanley’s primary responsibilities were to develop products, curricular, and training materials to support the work of educators. In this position, she designed and delivered technical assistance around topics related to reading, behavioral interventions, and access to the general education curriculum.
Dr. Shanley’s more than twenty-five years of experience in special education and disability fields provide her with knowledge of state policies and practices regarding topics such as technical assistance, professional development, state assessments, accommodations, alternate assessment procedures, and instructional methods. She uses this knowledge to assist local and state agency personnel to build their capacity to conduct needs assessments, make decisions about instruction and interventions, and to collect data and evaluate programs. Dr. Shanley’s experience in adult learning theory provides her with the skills to develop materials, using technology and non-technology forums that are consistent with the learning needs of diverse audiences. She also has experience in providing technical assistance to state and district educators and administrators around issues regarding the selection and implementation of comprehensive school reform models. Through her experience on the Comprehensive School Reform Quality (CSRQ) Center at AIR, Dr. Shanley has been involved in developing consumer reports on the topic of comprehensive school reform.
The opportunities she has had both in academic and employment settings to interact with local educators, administrators, teacher educators, families, and policymakers provides her with an appreciation for the influence of perspectives, experiences, and style on learning outcomes. With this in mind, Dr. Shanley provided oversight to electronic communication and support forums such as the EMSTAC website, chat events, threaded discussions, and Listserv and used these mechanisms as data collection and information dissemination tools. She is, or has been, active on national and state advisory boards including the national Division on Career Development and Transition (DCDT), the Virginia Federation, Council for Exceptional Children, the Institute for Innovation in Health and Human Services at James Madison University, and TransCen Inc., a Maryland based non-profit organization dedicated to vocational and transition issues for students with disabilities. She is also the current Co-Director of the Educators with Disabilities Caucus, an affiliation of the Council for Exceptional Children dedicated to the recruitment and retention of educators with disabilities into education professions.
Prior to joining AIR, Dr. Shanley was the Project Director and Research Associate for three years at the National Clearinghouse for Professions in Special Education at the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC). In this position, Dr. Shanley provided technical assistance to researchers, educators, and students and developed products and materials related to the supply and demand of special education personnel, teacher education and personnel preparation, and the recruitment and retention of professionals in special education and related services disciplines.
Before her employment at CEC, Dr. Shanley was a nationally Certified Rehabilitation Counselor (CRC), and worked in the public and private sectors to facilitate the vocational rehabilitation of individuals with disabilities and those persons who sustained work related injuries. She worked with local school districts to conceptualize and develop transition programs which provided students with disabilities in secondary school settings with experiences in post school vocational settings.
Dr. Shanley earned her Ph.D. in Special Education with an emphasis on transition and educational leadership in 1995 from the University of Florida. She obtained an M.B.A. in 1991 and a Master’s in Rehabilitation Counseling in 1982, both from Syracuse University.
