About Dr. Cawthon
Dr. Stephanie Cawthon’s mission is to translate research into practices that help millions of deaf and disabled Americans succeed—at schools and colleges, at work or training programs, and most importantly at life.
Her 28-year career in teaching and research has been dedicated to studying how people achieve educational success, how it leads to life satisfaction, and what schools, governments, and parents can do to help ensure it happens.
She wears many hats:
Professor at the University of Texas at Austin
NEW! Executive Director and Principal Investigator of the National Disability Center for Student Success
Director of the Collaborative for Access & Equity
Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Disabled Faculty Equity Council
Founding Director of the National Deaf Center
Director of Research & Evaluation for Drama for Schools
Co-Editor of Perspectives on Deafness at Oxford University Press
And her favorite: mentor
An internationally renowned expert who regularly presents at conferences and events and does private consulting, Dr. Cawthon’s research examines the multiple factors that affect how deaf and disabled people succeed after high school, investigates issues of equity and access in education, explores accommodations and accessible learning environments, and challenges systemic standards that may be holding some students back.
Her research has been funded by over $50 million in federal and other grants.
She literally wrote the book on the topic. Dr. Cawthon co-authored Shifting the Dialog, Shifting the Culture: Pathways to Successful Postsecondary Outcomes for Deaf Individuals, a publication that a leading journal called “an important contribution to the field.”
Dr. Cawthon co-authored Research in Deaf Education: Contexts, Challenges and Considerations in 2017. Her first book, Accountability-Based Reforms: The Impact of Deaf or Hard of Hearing Students, won the Exceptional Book of the Year Award in 2012 from Exceptionality Education International.
Dr. Cawthon grew up hard of hearing herself, and her own transition to college was not seamless.
Learn more about Dr. Cawthon’s journey as a deaf academic in her profile in The Mind Hears.
Raised oral in mainstream schools, she attempted the accommodations strategies she used in high school, then quickly realized they were inadequate in a large university setting. She went on to earn her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Psychology from Stanford University, where her initial line of research in the language development of deaf children launched her career.
Dr. Cawthon received her doctorate in Educational Psychology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2002, where she became a systems thinker focused on educational access, equity, and attainment.