Rate My Professor Jennifer Kurth

Jennifer A. Kurth, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the Department of Special Education at the University of Kansas, as well as affiliated faculty at the Kansas University Center on Disabilities and Associate Director of Interdisciplinary Training there since 2022. She earned her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of California, Davis in 2008, focusing her dissertation on academic outcomes in inclusive and non-inclusive programs for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. Kurth holds an M.Ed. in Special Education with an emphasis in severe disabilities from the University of Washington in 2001 and a B.S. in Human Development from the University of California, Davis in 1998. Her professional career includes serving as Assistant Professor in the Educational Specialties Department at Northern Arizona University from 2008 to 2013, Inclusion Specialist at Davis Joint Unified School District from 2001 to 2008, and progressive faculty roles at the University of Kansas since 2013, advancing from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor with tenure in 2018.

Kurth's academic interests and research specializations encompass inclusive education and low-incidence disabilities, with a focus on improving outcomes for students with complex support needs by enhancing access to general education settings, developing effective practices and systems to promote learning in those environments, and advancing teacher education. She has authored or co-authored key publications such as the book The Inclusion Toolbox: Strategies and techniques for all teachers (2014), and highly influential articles including "Why aren’t students with severe disabilities being placed in general education classrooms: Examining the relations among classroom placement, learner outcomes, and other factors" (Agran et al., 2020), "The persistence of highly restrictive special education placements for students with low-incidence disabilities" (Kurth, Morningstar, & Kozleski, 2014), and "Teachers’ views of their preparation for inclusive education and collaboration" (Zagona, Kurth, & MacFarland, 2017). Kurth has received major awards including the University of Kansas School of Education Faculty Achievement Award for Research (2022), TASH Early Career Research Award (2018), Rudig Teaching Professorship in Special Education (2019), and Emerald Literati Awards for Excellence (2017, 2019). As principal investigator or co-principal investigator, she has secured multimillion-dollar grants from the Office of Special Education Programs and Institute of Education Sciences, such as a $1.4 million IES grant on factors contributing to academic, social/communication, and behavioral outcomes for elementary students with significant cognitive disabilities (2018-2021) and OSEP grants supporting personnel preparation for high-intensity needs (2016-2021, 2020-2025).