Beth Myers is the Lawrence B. Taishoff Associate Professor of Inclusive Education, the Executive Director of the Taishoff Center for Inclusive Higher Education, and the Assistant Director for the Center on Disability and Inclusion. She is a faculty member in the Teaching and Leadership Department in the School of Education at Syracuse University, teaching in the Inclusive Elementary program where she started in 2014. She oversees InclusiveU, a federally-recognized model program for college students with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Professor Myers taught in the Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania and helped to create a best-practice inclusive program there. She opened a regional center for autism services in 2006 and served as Executive Director before joining the center’s consultation team in 2011. Beth has provided school consultations and staff development to over 60 school districts. Additionally, Professor Myers has been the faculty liaison to the Syracuse City School District for the SUITR Program, a Masters Residency program in urban special education.
Dr. Myers has been awarded over $18 million in external funding to support research and program development in school inclusion for students with disabilities. She has served on the Fit Families research team and has published several articles and book chapters in inclusive physical activity for students with disabilities. Myers co-edited a special issue of TASH Connections: Post-secondary Education and Self-Advocacy and a special issue of Impact: Inclusive Higher Education. Her book, Autobiography on the Spectrum: Disrupting the Autism Narrative, was published in 2019 by Teachers College Press. Her second book, Creating Our Own Lives: College Students with Intellectual Disability with co-author Michael Gill, was published in 2023 with University of Minnesota Press.
Myers has conducted research to study the autobiographical works of adolescents with autism, which won the Ralph C. Preston Award for Scholarship and Teaching Contributing to Social Justice and Educational Equity. Myers currently serves on the National Down Syndrome Society Inclusion Committee. She is the founding Executive Editor of the Journal of Inclusive Postsecondary Education and the Chair of the Annual State of the Art Conference in Inclusive Higher Educaiton. Dr. Myers was awarded the 2018 CNY Business Journal’s Business Woman of the Year in Higher Education, the 2021 Meredith Early Career Teaching Award, and the 2022 George Jesien National Leadership Award in Higher Education.
Dr. Myers holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in elementary education, special education, and literacy from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and a doctorate from the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
Inclusive Postsecondary Education, Inclusive Higher Education, Intellectual Disability, Disability Studies, Inclusive Education and Teacher Preparation, Self-determination and Transition Planning, Literacy Education