Lindsey Kaler

Lindsey Kaler is a doctoral student in special education at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. She is a fellow in the Project LINC cohort and is federally funded by a training grant from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). Her research explores the intersections of trauma, special education, and educational policies, paying particular attention to outcomes for students identified with emotional and behavioral disabilities (EBD). She also analyzes policies related to teacher preparation and labor markets.

While Lindsey’s main methodologies of interest are descriptive and econometric analyses, she has gained experience in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. Some of her current projects include an NSF-funded randomized control trial in partnership with the University of Virginia and the University of Delaware that seeks to improve teacher preparation in elementary mathematics (PI: Nathan Jones); a narrative analysis of special education teachers’ beliefs about their students with EBD (PI: Elizabeth Bettini); and an ongoing research partnership with Boston Public Schools and the Boston Police Department (PI: Jennifer Green) that seeks to better understand and improve mental health crisis responses in schools. Lindsey’s work (“How trauma informed is special education?: A systematic review of trauma in recent special education literature”) received the 2022 Kaleidoscope Award for Best Doctoral Student Literature Review Poster Presentation at the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) annual conference. Before beginning her program at BU, Lindsey was a special education teacher in public schools in Washington, DC and Arlington, Virginia.

Advisor: Nathan Jones

Pronouns: she/her