Shawnee Wakeman
- Senior Research Associate
Contact Info
Biography —
Shawnee Wakeman is a Senior Researcher and the Professional Learning Area Lead at Accessible Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Systems (ATLAS), a research center at the University of Kansas with more than 150 staff and more than $20M in annual revenues.
Wakeman officially joined ATLAS in the summer of 2026, but she has previously collaborated with staff on a variety of projects, including 5E-SESE and the Compass Summer Institute. Before joining ATLAS, Wakeman served 20 years as a clinical professor in the Department of Special Education and Child Development at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she holds Emerita status.
Her research interests include access to the general curriculum, including how it is enacted for students with extensive support needs in a variety of settings and teacher professional development. Wakeman has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigor on several federally funded (OSEP and IES) projects including Project IMPACT: Inclusion Made Practical for All Children and Teachers and The TIES Center: Increasing Time, Instructional Effectiveness, Engagement, and State Support for Inclusive Practices for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities, securing over $6 million in external funding to support her work. Wakeman has more than 65 publications disseminated in high-quality, peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Special Education, Preventing School Failure, Teaching Exceptional Children and the Journal of Intellectual Disability Research.
Education —
Selected Publications —
Williams, T., Wakeman, S., & Karvonen, M. (in press). How to Review and Choose a Curriculum for Students with Extensive Support Needs. Teaching Exceptional Children.
Johnson, H. N., Wakeman, S. Y., Rubio, C., & Bong, J. (2026). Beyond the count: An argument for opportunities to respond. Preventing School Failure, 70(3), 189-196. https://doi.org/10.1080/1045988X.2026.2667521
Wakeman, S.Y., Johnson, H., Cary, J., Endacott, C., Westine, C. & Liu, Q. (2026). AI literacy: University students’ perceptions and practices. Trends in Higher Education, 5(2), 44-64. https://doi.org/10.3390/higheredu5020044
Wakeman, S.Y., Pennington, R. & Williams, T.R. (2025). Teaching students with IDD and ESN to engage meaningfully with text though high quality literacy instruction. In J.P. Bakken (Ed.) Handbook for Educating Students with Disabilities: Implications and Strategies. Springer.
Selected Presentations —
Johnson, H. N., & Wakeman, S. Y. (2026, March 11-13). From opportunity to action: Using AI to track and monitor teachers’ delivery of OTRs [Conference session]. Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Special Education Convention & Expo, Salt Lake, UT.
Ruhter, L., Wakeman, S.Y., & Williams, T.R. (2026, January 15-16). Inquiry-based science teaching for students with extensive support needs. [Conference session]. 27th International Conference on Autism, Intellectual Disability, & Developmental Disabilities (DADD) Conference. Long Beach, CA.
Wakeman, S.Y., Pennington, R. & Williams, T.R. (2026, January 15-16). Using strategies and OTR delivery to increase engagement of students with ESN. 27th International Conference on Autism, Intellectual Disability, & Developmental Disabilities (DADD) Conference. Long Beach, CA.
Wakeman, S., Pennington, R., & Williams, T. (2025, January). Literacy: A conceptual model for reading and writing instruction for students with complex learning needs. [Conference session]. Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Special Education Convention & Expo, Baltimore, MD.
Awards & Honors —
2025 Distinguished Faculty Award, Cato College of Education, UNC Charlotte
2022 Division of Autism and Developmental Disabilities (DADD) Research Award
Grants & Other Funded Activity —
Wakeman, S. (PI), & Johnson, H. N. (2024). Collaborative Educators in Inclusive Schools [Grant]. Teaching and Leadership, Belk Foundation.
Wakeman, S. (PI), Saunders, A., & Pennington, R. (2018). Project IMPACT: Inclusion Made Practical for All Children and Teachers. Office of Special Education Programs: Model Demonstration Project.
National Center on Educational Outcomes [S. Wakeman, Co-PI]. (2017). TIES Center: Increasing time, instructional effectiveness, engagement, and state support for inclusive practices for students with significant cognitive disabilities. U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs: National Technical Assistance Center on Inclusive Practices and Policies.