Yvette Doss
Ph.D. Candidate in Education (Special Education, Disability, and Risk Studies) at UC Santa Barbara.
I study how schools and educational technologies shape access and opportunity for autistic and neurodivergent students.
I am on the 2026–27 academic job market for tenure-track positions in special education and teacher education.
I work in special education teacher preparation and study inclusion and access for autistic and neurodivergent students across K–12 and higher education. My current work includes research on autistic college students’ use of AI tools and K–12 autistic student inclusive placement.
My research asks how institutions, technologies, and learning environments organize or limit meaningful access for neurodivergent students.
Before my doctoral work, I spent six years as a special education teacher in LAUSD across elementary and secondary settings. I serve as a university supervisor for Education Specialist candidates in their field placements, and I have served as a teaching assistant in the UCSB Teacher Education Program and across several education courses. I also founded the Neurodivergent Student Project, a peer-support initiative for neurodivergent students.
My approach to teaching is shaped by six years in LAUSD classrooms and ongoing work in teacher preparation. I am committed to Universal Design for Learning as both a pedagogical framework and an equity stance, one that assumes learner variability as the norm rather than the exception. At the postsecondary level, I design learning experiences that help students connect abstract educational ideas to the real decisions teachers must make about access, inclusion, and learner difference.
Teaching Experience
- University of La Verne · 2026–present University Supervisor, Education Specialist Credential Program Observation, feedback, and mentoring for intern and student teachers in K–12 special education placements.
- UC Santa Barbara · 2023–present Teaching Assistant and Instructor of Record Elementary math methods in the Teacher Education Program, undergraduate education courses, and Elementary Spanish as instructor of record.
- Los Angeles Unified School District · 2016–2022 Special Education Teacher Inclusion, resource, and special day class instruction across elementary and secondary settings.
Workshops & Invited Talks
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TAs Supporting Students with Autism & ADHD at UCSB
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TAs Supporting Neurodivergent Students at UCSB
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Advocacy and Agency in Equity Conversations: Supporting Neurodivergent Students
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Counselors Supporting Neurodivergent Students at UCSB
Across K–12 placement, teacher preparation, and AI tools, my research asks one question: how do educational environments organize access for autistic and neurodivergent students, and who ends up doing the work of access when they don’t? I study this at three levels: the district, the classroom, and the technologies students use.
Disability, Language, and Mathematics Learning
Collaborative qualitative research, supported by the Spencer Foundation, on how Latina middle school students with learning disabilities learn mathematics in a dual immersion school. A first-authored book chapter from this work is accepted.
Who Does the Work? Cognitive Labor Redistribution and Autistic College Student Experience in Human-AI Interaction
My dissertation examines how cognitive labor shifts when autistic college students work with AI tools, developing a framework for evaluating how different divisions of labor support or undermine competence, autonomy, and authentic attunement. Its first study, on how autistic Redditors adapt ChatGPT, was presented at AERA 2026.
Deeper Learning in Teacher Education Programs
Graduate Student Researcher on a national qualitative study, funded by the Hewlett Foundation, examining deeper learning practices across teacher education programs through interviews with teacher candidates and faculty.
District Variation in Least Restrictive Environment Placement in California
A study of district-to-district variation in the educational placement of autistic students across California, using four years of state program-setting data. The study asks which district characteristics predict inclusive placement and treats inclusion as a matter of district capacity. A paper is under review for the 2027 AERA Annual Meeting.
- Schuck, R. K., Doss, Y., Choi, S., & Baiden, K. M. P. (2026). “Human minds/brains are one avenue of human diversity”: Definitions of “neurodiversity” amongst current and future helping professionals. Research in Neurodiversity, 2, 100052. doi:10.1016/j.rin.2026.100052
- Schuck, R. K., Geng, A., Doss, Y., Lin, F., Crousore, H., Baiden, K. M., Dwyer, P., Williams, Z. J., & Wang, M. (2024). A qualitative investigation into autistic adults’ perspectives on intervention goals for autistic children. Neurodiversity, 2. doi:10.1177/27546330241266718
- Doss, Y., Monroy Castro, M., Mireles-Rios, R., & Lambert, R. Knowing Crystal, knowing Paris: Institutional identifiability and political conocimiento in a dual immersion middle school mathematics classroom. In P. Tan, C. Yeh, & K. Lewis (Eds.), Reimagining and transforming disability in mathematics education. Pressbooks. Accepted
- Lambert, R., & Doss, Y. Engaging teachers in experiences of neurodivergent students learning mathematics: Insider narratives of disability and mathematics. Mathematics Teacher Educator. Revise and resubmit
- Doss, Y. (Ed.). (2026). Disparate Kind: Neurodivergent Poets Chapbook. Snowy Plover Press.
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2027
District variation in inclusive placement for autistic students in California, 2022–2026: Poverty and urbanicity Under reviewAmerican Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, Toronto, Ontario
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2026
Learning from autistic Redditors: ChatGPT adaptations and implications for inclusive educational AI designAmerican Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA
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2026
Preparing future educators for deeper learning: Insights from a qualitative study on teacher candidate engagement with the deeper learning modules Co-authorAmerican Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA
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2025
Embodied intersectionality and emotion: Theorizing complex embodiment of Latinas with learning disabilities learning mathAmerican Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, Denver, CO
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2024
Cross-disciplinary collaborative efforts to advance equity in mental healthNational Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Annual Convention, New Orleans, LA
I welcome inquiries from prospective collaborators, journalists, educators, and students. I am particularly glad to connect with people working on neurodivergent education, inclusive pedagogy, and teacher preparation.
Institutional address
Gevirtz Graduate School of Education
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA
CV
Available upon request.