Melissa Edmiston

Melissa Storm Edmiston, director of Learning and Development at AIR, has 22 years of experience in education, training, and technical assistance (TA) work in the field of education. In her role as principal researcher, Dr. Edmiston applied her expertise in providing students with disabilities access to the general education curriculum to leadership of policy and TA projects.

Dr. Edmiston formerly served as co-project director of the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs’ (OSEP’s) IDEA Analysis, Communications, Dissemination, and Meetings (ACDM) Support Contract. In this role, she provided oversight for evaluations, national workgroups, and meetings for OSEP as well as the development of communications projects for dissemination.  In addition, Dr. Edmiston served as senior advisor for a portfolio of projects supporting students with disabilities in Vermont, including the Vermont Professional Development Project on Universal Design for Learning (UDL), the Vermont Math Professional Development Project, and the Professional Learning for Educators in Pilot Schools project. In this role, she provided conceptual oversight and advised project directors on the development and delivery of training and technical assistance to districts and schools in the state.

Dr. Edmiston has expertise and has presented at state, local, and national events and conference on topics related to evidence-based instruction, UDL, and assessment of students with disabilities.  She also serves on the board of the Tanzania Education Fund.  Dr. Edmiston has been involved with the development of curriculum and training of teachers for over 20 years.  She taught special education for seven years in Louisiana, Colorado, and Virginia public schools.