Katie Terrell is a second year graduate student in the School Psychology (Educational Specialist) program. Prior to coming to graduate school, Katie worked as a special education teacher in Nashville, Tennessee with both middle and elementary school students. It was in that role she developed a passion for working with students with disabilities and decided to pursue a career in school psychology. After hearing about HDI at her graduate school interview day, Katie knew she wanted to become involved with the institute.
Katie completed the Graduate Certificate in 2016 and through the certificate was able to complete a valuable practicum experience at a local elementary school working with pre-school students with disabilities. As part of her Graduate Certificate leadership project, Katie was able to present research on peer mentoring for college students with disabilities at the national American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities conference in June 2015.
Katie has also worked as a Research Assistant since 2014 on both the Supported Higher Education Project (SHEP) and the College and Career Readiness Project (CCR). In her work with SHEP, Katie was able to work as a tutor and mentor for college students with intellectual disabilities. She was also responsible for helping to recruit and train other peer mentors and collaborate with college professors on alternate grading rubrics for students. Some of Katie’s CCR responsibilities include formatting, proofreading, and editing documents prior to publication, attending CCR meetings, and helping to develop a website for the project.
“Being involved with both SHEP and CCR has been such a meaningful and personally rewarding experience! Seeing the students involved with SHEP grow tremendously as a result of attending college has been amazing, and my work with CCR has me truly excited about the future of education in Kentucky. I know the skills I gained by working as a research assistant combined with the knowledge I gained from the Graduate Certificate will greatly enhance the services I am able to provide to students and families as a future school psychologist.”
