Stacy Kelly, Ph.D. was recently granted two awards at the Council for Exceptional Children’s 2009 Convention in Seattle, Washington.  Kelly is a recent graduate of the College’s Educational Psychology doctoral program, where she emphasized in the area of blindness and visual impairment.

The first award, the Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award, recognized Kelly’s exceptional work on her dissertation “Correlates of Assistive Technology Use by Students Who Are Visually Impaired in the U.S.: Multilevel Modeling of the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study.”  The thesis highlighted her research investigating assistive technology use by students with visual impairments.  The Council’s Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award honors a person whose doctoral dissertation demonstrates technical soundness and continuity, a contribution to the field, writing quality, research design, and methodology, data analysis, and interpretation of results.

In addition to this award, Kelly was also the recipient of the Virginia M. Sowell Student of the Year Award, granted by the Division on Visual Impairments of the Council for Exceptional Children.  The Sowell award is granted in honor of Dr. Virginia Murray Sowell, who trained professionals to improve the lives of individuals with visual impairments in the nation and beyond.  Dr. Gaylen Kapperman, Professor and Coordinator of the College’s Visual Disabilities Program, nominated Kelly for this award.