Presenter Bio

Loui Lord Nelson, PhD

Loui began her career in education in 1991 as a special education assistant. Soon after she moved into a full-time position as an 8th grade collaborative teacher. While completing her Masters, though, Loui decided she wanted to have an impact at the systems level and decided to leave the classroom for the University of Kansas’ special education doctoral program. From there, she worked in the post-secondary setting, taking stock of what students were experiencing after graduation. When the door opened for her to step back into K-12 education in 2008, she put her passion of ensuring ALL students are prepared for the post-secondary world into action.

From 2008 until 2012, Loui worked in Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation (BCSC) as their UDL Coordinator. This is believed to be the first district in the United States of America and globally to identify a point person to support teachers, administrators, and district leaders in their understanding of and implementation of UDL. In that role, Loui provided direct support, designed tools, created workshops, and helped design the district’s personnel evaluation system which included UDL implementation for 50% of its scoring.

In 2012, Loui was awarded a CAST/Boston College post-doctoral fellowship. These fellowships were a rare opportunity for two people each year to work alongside the CAST staff, some of the founders, and other long-time UDL thought leaders. It was during her post-doc that she wrote Design and Deliver: Planning and Teaching Using Universal Design for Learning. The book has continued to be a best seller. It has been translated into Dutch and the rights have been purchased for its translation into Korean.

Since then, Loui’s work has ranged from delivering keynotes and workshops to working with planning teams to design and structure multi-year, multi-dimensional implementation contracts. No matter the work, she is thrilled every time she works alongside educators as they consider how UDL will fit with and guide how they deliver supports to all learners. This includes delivery in the classroom, in curriculum design meetings, during leadership team meetings, for board presentations and considering how UDL can impact a country’s entire educational system.