Our Staff

Valerie Karr, Ph.D. (Teachers College, Columbia University), Ph.D. is an expert in the field of child education and public awareness strategies and campaigning, with a strong clinical background in special education and a track record of effective advocacy both nationally and internationally in the area of disability rights. Ms. Karr is highly experienced in providing strategic counsel on international education programming, including qualitative and quantitative analysis and the development of specialized assessment tools and strategies.  Past projects include authoring UNICEF's human rights education manual for youth with disabilities based on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, an internship for UNESCO's inclusive education sector, coordination of Teachers College National Autism Conference, and evaluation design for American University's Center for Global Peace Iraqi Human Rights Ministry Delegation..

Valerie is co-author of Human Rights. YES!, Action and advocacy on the rights of persons with disabilities and has worked as the education and children's rights expert developing and implementing participatory human rights education curricula for person with disabilities. She also serves as a key educational advisor to the Shafallah Center, a premier educational and research facility for children with disabilities in Qatar and to Autism Speaks, the largest autism advocacy organization in the United States. Dr. Karr has extensive graduate-level coursework in evaluation methods, assessment, and instrument design and validation. Her dissertation incorporated instrument design for a new assessment of the human rights of persons with disabilities under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its relation to the improvement of quality of life at an international level.