Exciting news: In 2026, In addition to continuing my work as Assistant Director of the Center for Language Teaching Advancement, I am also taking on the role of Accessibility Coordinator and Advocate for the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University. In this leadership position, I will take an active role in helping …
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The International Association of Language Learning Technology chose disability and language teaching as their theme for their 2026 webinar series. Their webinar team asked for my help, not only to invite speakers from my network of scholars and teachers who work at the intersection of disability and language education, but also to open the series …
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In November 2025, I visited New Orleans, Louisiana for back-to-back conferencing opportunities. I’m an Associate Member of the National Council for State Supervisors of Language (NCSSFL; “Nuh-CESS-full”), so I attended their annual meeting in my early days of the week of conferencing. It’s always enlightening to hear about the challenges (advocacy) and wins (seals of …
It was such a treat to meet Haben Girma at MSU's 2025 Disability Summit on 10/3/25. I told her (via a bluetooth keyboard synced to her Brailler) that my grandfather, who was blind, would have been tickled by her sharp humor. Image description: Masked Caitlin holds up a freshly signed copy of Haben Girma's book …
Beginning in 2024 and continuing into 2025, I conducted an informal needs analysis to craft a workshop for Refugee Development Center (RDC) English Language instructors on the topic of disability inclusion for additional language learning and teaching. Wanting to make my workshop as useful as possible to RDC teachers, I engaged in an almost year-long …
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Hot off the presses! My chapter outlining how language centers can be leaders in access appears in the just released Language Center Handbook 2025 published by the International Association of Language Learning Technology (IALLT). In my chapter, I examined the many ways language centers can prioritize disability inclusion within various operations and projects in centers’ …
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Here's an update on the 2025 special issue of Studies in Second Language Acquisition: Disability and Second Language Learning. It’s been a pleasure working with our contributing authors, and I’m as grateful as ever to my co-guest editor Rob Randez. Three “teaser” articles are out in first view: Reza Rezvani, Hessameddin Ghanbar, & Yasamin Khanshir …
My chapter outlining how language centers can be leaders in access will appear in the imminently forthcoming Language Center Handbook 2025 published by the International Association for Language Learning Technology (IALLT). This summer, I joined the book launch at the FLEAT 8 conference in Honolulu, Hawai’i! It was great to spend some time with the …
On April 30, 2025, I successfully defended my dissertation: University world language instructors’ readiness for disability inclusion. I also gave a version of the defense presentation at the 7th annual Second Language Learning and Disabilities conference (here’s the slide deck). You know what this means: I learned so much from my instructor participants that I …
The 2025 TESOL convention gave me a good sized room to talk about early-service K-12 teachers’ preparedness to address the needs of their disabled multilinguals’ needs. Disability topics usually draw a small but dedicated crowd of language folks. I had an audience of thirty super engaged teachers who asked great questions and nodded along with …
